Print a Report
- 4 minutes to read
This topic describes how to print a report in a WinForms application.
Essential Methods
Create the ReportPrintTool class’ instance and use any of the following methods to print a report:
The PrintToolBase.Print method sends a document to a printer (the system’s default or a specific printer) using default printing settings.
Note
An exception is thrown when a printer with the specified name is not found.
In Print Preview, this method corresponds to the Quick Print
command.The PrintTool.PrintDialog method raises the Print dialog, where an end-user can select a printer and specify other print options before printing the document:
In Print Preview, this method corresponds to the Print
command.
Print Light-Weight Reports
Pass the report’s instance to the ReportPrintTool constructor as a parameter. Use one of the ReportPrintTool‘s methods listed above to print the associated report.
The following code illustrates how to use these methods to print a report in a Windows Forms application:
using System;
using System.Windows.Forms;
using DevExpress.XtraReports.UI;
// ...
private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) {
XtraReport1 report = new XtraReport1();
ReportPrintTool printTool = new ReportPrintTool(report);
// Invoke the Print dialog.
printTool.PrintDialog();
// Send the report to the default printer.
printTool.Print();
// Send the report to the specified printer.
printTool.Print("myPrinter");
}
Tip
Calling any of these methods generates a report document by calling the XtraReport.CreateDocument method internally if the document is not created yet.
Print Large Reports
Use the CachedReportSource component to print reports that include a huge amount of data. This component allows you to avoid memory consumption-related issues by storing pages in a file system or database during document generation.
Create a CachedReportSource instance specifying a report to be printed and a storage to cache the report document.
using DevExpress.XtraReports.UI;
using DevExpress.XtraPrinting.Caching;
//...
var storage = new MemoryDocumentStorage();
var report = new XtraReport1();
var cachedReportSource = new CachedReportSource(report, storage);
The MemoryDocumentStorage object used in this code stores a document in memory in a compact way. You can use the FileDocumentStorage, DbDocumentStorage or implement a custom storage instead.
Pass a CachedReportSource instance to the ReportPrintTool constructor as a parameter. Use one of the ReportPrintTool‘s methods listed above to print the report associated with the CachedReportSource object.
using System.Windows.Forms;
using DevExpress.XtraReports.UI;
using DevExpress.XtraPrinting.Caching;
// ...
private void button_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) {
var storage = new MemoryDocumentStorage();
var report = new XtraReport1();
var cachedReportSource = new CachedReportSource(report, storage);
var printTool = new ReportPrintTool(cachedReportSource);
// Invoke the Print dialog.
printTool.PrintDialog();
}
Tip
Calling any of the printing methods generates a report document by calling the CachedReportSource.CreateDocumentAsync method internally if the document is not created yet.
Set the Document Name of a Print Job
Specify the Document.Name property of a report’s PrintingSystem. Call CreateDocument before changing this property’s value to initialize this report’s Printing System.
Note that `Document.Name`` is displayed in the Save File dialog window and is used as a file name on document export.