Lesson 1 - Show the Print Preview for a Link

• Dec 17, 2023
• 2 minutes to read

This lesson illustrates how to create a basic printing link that creates an empty document, and how to create a Print Preview in a Windows Forms Application to show this document.

Tip

A complete sample project is available in the DevExpress Code Examples database at https://supportcenter.devexpress.com/ticket/details/e161/reporting-get-started-with-printing-library.

To create a Print Preview and show a document in it, do the following.

1. Create a new Windows Forms Application in Visual Studio.

2. To add a print preview to your application, switch to the application’s main form in Visual Studio, and press CTRL+ALT+X to run the Toolbox. Expand the DX.24.1: Reporting category and drop the DocumentViewer control onto the form.

   

3. Click the smart tag of the control, and in the invoked actions list, select a toolbar that matches the user interface style of the rest of your application. In this tutorial, the ribbon toolbar is preferred over the minimal bar interface.

   

4. To assign a document source to the control, click its smart tag again. In the drop-down menu of the DocumentViewer.DocumentSource property, expand the Standard Sources category and select PrintingSystem.

   

5. Press F7 to switch to the code view, and declare a new public class (called Lesson1), inherited from the Link class.

   C#

   using DevExpress.XtraPrinting;
   // ...
   
   public class Lesson1 : Link {
       public Lesson1(PrintingSystem ps) {
           CreateDocument(ps);
       }
   }
   

   VB.NET

   Imports DevExpress.XtraPrinting
   ' ...
   
   Public Class Lesson1
       Inherits Link
   
       Public Sub New(ps As PrintingSystem)
           CreateDocument(ps)
       End Sub
   End Class
   

   Each subsequent lesson will create a class derived from the class created in the preceding lesson. Calling the Link.CreateDocument method will generate a document after making changes to it in code.

6. Handle the main form’s Load event and add the following code to the event handler.

   C#

   using System;
   using System.Windows.Forms;
   using DevExpress.XtraPrinting;
   // ...
   
   private void Form1_Load(object sender, System.EventArgs e) {
       Lesson1 lesson = new Lesson1(printingSystem1);
   }
   

   VB.NET

   Imports System
   Imports System.Windows.Forms
   Imports DevExpress.XtraPrinting
   ' ... 
   
   Private Sub Form1_Load(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs)
       Dim lesson As New Lesson1(printingSystem1)
   End Sub
   

   In this code, the Printing System of the Document Viewer is passed, and assigned to the created printing link.

Launch the application and view the result.