by Jay Kreusch (6 Submissions)
Category: Files/File Controls/Input/Output
Compatability: Visual Basic 3.0
Difficulty: Beginner
Date Added: Wed 3rd February 2021
Rating: 
(7 Votes)
Why mess around with the printer object if you don't have to? In my example, I print the contents of a richtextbox control to the printer with only a couple of lines of code. PERFECTLY formatted. Readily applies to just about any control or string, though.
Side Effects
Sometimes displays the splash screen of another program or a print dialog box
API Declarations'Used for the shell printing
Private Declare Function ShellExecute Lib "shell32.dll" Alias _
"ShellExecuteA" (ByVal hwnd As Long, ByVal lpOperation As String, _
ByVal lpFile As String, ByVal lpParameters As String, ByVal _
lpDirectory As String, ByVal nShowCmd As Long) As Long
'Used to come up with the temp file directory
Private Declare Function GetTempPath Lib "kernel32" _
Alias "GetTempPathA" (ByVal nBufferLength As Long, _
ByVal lpBuffer As String) As Long
'used to come up with the temp file name
Private Declare Function GetTempFileName Lib "kernel32" _
Alias "GetTempFileNameA" (ByVal lpszPath As String, _
ByVal lpPrefixString As String, ByVal wUnique As Long, _
ByVal lpTempFileName As String) As Long
VBcoders'All you need to provide is a prefix if desired, and the file extention
Private Function CreateTempFile(sPrefix As String, sSuffix As String) As String
Dim sTmpPath As String * 512
Dim sTmpName As String * 576
Dim nRet As Long
'Some API and string manipulation to get the temp file created
nRet = GetTempPath(512, sTmpPath)
If (nRet > 0 And nRet < 512) Then
nRet = GetTempFileName(sTmpPath, sPrefix, 0, sTmpName)
If nRet <> 0 Then
sTmpName = Left$(sTmpName, _
InStr(sTmpName, vbNullChar) - 1)
CreateTempFile = Left(Trim(sTmpName), Len(Trim(sTmpName)) - 3) & sSuffix
End If
End If
End Function
Private Sub Command1_Click()
Dim sTmpFile As String
Dim sMsg As String
Dim hFile As Long
'We're trying to print a richtextbox, so give it something to name
'it by, and make sure you set the extention to rtf.
'You could print a textbox by using txt, etc.
sTmpFile = CreateTempFile("jTmp", "rtf")
'Gets the next available open number
hFile = FreeFile
'open the file and give it the textRTF of the richtextbox
'if you don't want to use boxed, you could just pass a string here
Open sTmpFile For Binary As hFile
Put #hFile, , RichTextBox1.TextRTF
Close hFile
'shell print it
Call ShellExecute(0&, "Print", sTmpFile, vbNullString, vbNullString, vbHide)
'delete it.
Kill sTmpFile
End Sub