Question

I’m creating a simple WPF print dialog box to setup a label printer. I want it to be very simple and so I’ve choosen not to use the standard WPF printdialog.

All is going well accept for one thing, paper sizes.

Having selected a printer from one combobox, a second combobox is populated with the paper sizes available from that device. I’m currently using selectedPrinter.GetPrintCapabilities.PageMediaSizeCapability and setting that as itemssource of the combobox.

However, my main issues with this are:

It seems to only get a subset of the available paper sizes (compared to the normal print dialog)

No way to add custom sizes since PageMediaSize is not inheritable and the constructor only allows you to use the PageMediaSizeName Enum

and

The only name I can display is the Enum text by binding the diplaypath to PageMediaSizeName, which is not particularly user friendly.

What I have also found is that if I dump selectedPrinter.GetPrintCapabilitiesAsXml to a file and look at that, I get everything I need; all the availble the paper sizes of the printer each with sizes and importantly a display name element.

My question is, am I missing something with selectedPrinter.GetPrintCapabilities or do I need to create a parser for selectedPrinter.GetPrintCapabilitiesAsXml and use this info instead?

Answer 1

I ended up creating my own PaperSize class (below) and I use this command

PaperSize.ParsePaperSizeXML(New Xml.XmlTextReader(selectPrinter.GetPrintCapabilitiesAsXml))

to retrieve the printer’s available paper sizes as a bindinglist (selectedPrinter is a instance of the Printing.PrintQueue class)

Public Class PaperSize

    Const FEATURENODE As String = "psf:Feature"
    Const PAPERSIZEATTRIBUTE As String = "psk:PageMediaSize"
    Const PAPEROPTIONNODE As String = "psf:Option"
    Const SCOREDPROPERTYNODE As String = "psf:ScoredProperty"
    Const WIDTHATTRIBUTE As String = "psk:MediaSizeWidth"
    Const HEIGHTATTRIBUTE As String = "psk:MediaSizeHeight"
    Const VALUENODE As String = "psf:Value"
    Const PROPERTNODE As String = "psf:Property"
    Const DISPLAYNAMEATTRIBUTE As String = "psk:DisplayName"
    Const NAMEATTRIBUTE As String = "name"

    Public Sub New()

    End Sub

    Public Sub New(ByVal PaperKey As String, ByVal PaperDisplayName As String)
        DisplayName = PaperDisplayName
        Width = Nothing
        Height = Nothing
    End Sub

    Public Sub New(ByVal PaperKey As String, ByVal PaperDisplayName As String, ByVal PaperWidth As Double?, ByVal PaperHeight As Double?)
        Key = PaperKey
        DisplayName = PaperDisplayName
        Width = PaperWidth
        Height = PaperHeight
    End Sub

    Property Key As String
    Property DisplayName As String
    Property Width As Double?
    Property Height As Double?


    Public ReadOnly Property WidthInMM As Double?
        Get
            If Width.HasValue Then
                Return WidthInInches * 25.4
            Else
                Return Nothing
            End If

        End Get
    End Property

    Public ReadOnly Property HeightInMM As Double?
        Get
            If Height.HasValue Then
                Return HeightInInches * 25.4
            Else
                Return Nothing
            End If


        End Get
    End Property

    Public ReadOnly Property WidthInInches As Double?
        Get
            If Width.HasValue Then
                Return Width / 96
            Else
                Return Nothing
            End If
        End Get
    End Property

    Public ReadOnly Property HeightInInches As Double?
        Get
            If Height.HasValue Then
                Return Height / 96
            Else
                Return Nothing
            End If
        End Get
    End Property

    Public Shared Function ParsePaperSizeXML(ByVal XmlString As Xml.XmlReader) As ComponentModel.BindingList(Of PaperSize)

        Dim lstPaperSizes As New ComponentModel.BindingList(Of PaperSize)

        Try

            While XmlString.Read()

                If XmlString.NodeType = Xml.XmlNodeType.Element Then
                    Select Case XmlString.Name
                        Case FEATURENODE
                            If XmlString.AttributeCount = 1 Then
                                Select Case XmlString.GetAttribute(NAMEATTRIBUTE)
                                    Case PAPERSIZEATTRIBUTE
                                        lstPaperSizes = processAllPaperSizes(XmlString.ReadSubtree)
                                End Select
                            End If
                    End Select

                End If

            End While

        Catch ex As Exception
            Throw ex
        End Try

        Return lstPaperSizes

    End Function

    Private Shared Function processAllPaperSizes(ByVal PaperSizeXmlString As Xml.XmlReader) As ComponentModel.BindingList(Of PaperSize)
        Dim lstPaperSizes As New ComponentModel.BindingList(Of PaperSize)
        Dim currentKey As String

        Try

            While PaperSizeXmlString.Read()

                If PaperSizeXmlString.NodeType = Xml.XmlNodeType.Element Then
                    Select Case PaperSizeXmlString.Name
                        Case PAPEROPTIONNODE
                            currentKey = PaperSizeXmlString.GetAttribute(NAMEATTRIBUTE)

                            lstPaperSizes.Add(processPaperSize(currentKey, PaperSizeXmlString.ReadSubtree))

                    End Select

                End If

            End While

        Catch ex As Exception
            Throw ex
        End Try
        Return lstPaperSizes
    End Function

    Private Shared Function processPaperSize(ByVal currentPaperKey As String, ByVal PaperSizeXmlString As Xml.XmlReader) As PaperSize

        Dim currentWidth, currentHeight As Double?
        Dim currentName As String = String.Empty
        Dim stringwidth, stringheight As String

        Try

            While PaperSizeXmlString.Read()

                If PaperSizeXmlString.NodeType = Xml.XmlNodeType.Element Then
                    Select Case PaperSizeXmlString.Name
                        Case SCOREDPROPERTYNODE

                            If PaperSizeXmlString.AttributeCount = 1 Then
                                Select Case PaperSizeXmlString.GetAttribute(NAMEATTRIBUTE)
                                    Case WIDTHATTRIBUTE
                                        stringwidth = processPaperValue(PaperSizeXmlString.ReadSubtree)
                                        If String.IsNullOrEmpty(stringwidth) Then
                                            currentWidth = Nothing
                                        Else
                                            currentWidth = MasterWPFUtils.MMToDPI(CDbl(stringwidth)) / 1000
                                        End If

                                    Case HEIGHTATTRIBUTE
                                        stringheight = processPaperValue(PaperSizeXmlString.ReadSubtree)
                                        If String.IsNullOrEmpty(stringheight) Then
                                            currentHeight = Nothing
                                        Else
                                            currentHeight = MasterWPFUtils.MMToDPI(CDbl(stringheight)) / 1000
                                        End If
                                End Select
                            End If
                        Case PROPERTNODE
                            If PaperSizeXmlString.AttributeCount = 1 Then
                                Select Case PaperSizeXmlString.GetAttribute(NAMEATTRIBUTE)
                                    Case DISPLAYNAMEATTRIBUTE
                                        currentName = processPaperValue(PaperSizeXmlString.ReadSubtree)
                                End Select
                            End If
                    End Select

                End If

            End While
            Return New PaperSize(currentPaperKey, currentName, currentWidth, currentHeight)
        Catch ex As Exception
            Throw ex
        End Try

    End Function

    Private Shared Function processPaperValue(ByVal valueXmlString As Xml.XmlReader) As String
        Try

            While valueXmlString.Read()

                If valueXmlString.NodeType = Xml.XmlNodeType.Element Then
                    Select Case valueXmlString.Name
                        Case VALUENODE
                            Return valueXmlString.ReadElementContentAsString.Trim
                    End Select
                End If
            End While
        Catch ex As Exception
            Throw ex
        End Try

        Return String.Empty
    End Function

End Class