CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#winforms
Vikas Bansal
Vikas Bansal

Reputation: 11740

how to Save PrintDocument .PrinterSettings in a file so that user have not to select printer settings everytime?

I am printing a document using print preview and every-time user click to print the data a dialogue asking for printer settings gets prompted which is of course not good. So, in order to remove that print dialogue box I need to store the print dialogue settings some where on the hard disk.

Code

        PrintDocument pd = new PrintDocument();
        pd.PrintPage += new PrintPageEventHandler(PrintPage);
        PrintDialog pdi = new PrintDialog();
        pdi.Document = pd;
        if (pdi.ShowDialog() == DialogResult.OK)
        {
            doc.PrinterSettings = pdi.PrinterSettings;
            pd.Print();
        }
        else
        {
            MessageBox.Show("Print Cancelled");
        }

Problem

how to store print dialog setting in some format and retrieve and store it in the object?

P.S: settings should be saved for the next time when the application is restarted.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 5745

Answers (1)

Reza Aghaei
Reza Aghaei

Reputation: 125197

Create a setting key in Setting file of your project and choose System.drawing.Printing.PrinterSettings type for it and name it for example PrinterSettins. Then you can save your printer settings in this property or read from this property simply.

Also you can create some setting keys for individual properties of PrinterSettings like PrinterName save them.

Save:

if(printDialog1.ShowDialog()==DialogResult.OK)
{
   Properties.Settings.Default.PrinterSettings = printDialog1.PrinterSettings;
   //Properties.Settings.PrinterName = printDialog1.PrinterSettings.PrinterName;
   Properties.Settings.Default.Save();
}

Read:

printDocument1.PrinterSettings = Properties.Settings.Default.PrinterSettings;
//printDocument1.PrinterSettings.PrinterName = Properties.Settings.Default.PrinterName;

enter image description here

Note:

EDIT

Since PrinterSettings class is serializable, another solution is to convert it to a base64 string and save it in a string and restore it from string. So you can create a string setting key PrinterSettings and save PrinterSettings in it or restore from it:

Save:

Properties.Settings.Default.PrinterSettings=SettingToString( printDialog1.PrinterSettings);
Properties.Settings.Default.Save();

Read:

printDocument1.PrinterSettings = SettingFromString(Properties.Settings.Default.PrinterSettings);

Helper Methods:

private string SettingToString(PrinterSettings settings)
{
    if (settings == null)
        return null;

    var bf = new BinaryFormatter();
    using (var ms = new MemoryStream())
    {
        bf.Serialize(ms, settings);
        return Convert.ToBase64String(ms.ToArray());
    }
}

private PrinterSettings SettingFromString(string base64)
{
    try
    {
        BinaryFormatter bf = new BinaryFormatter();
        using (var ms = new MemoryStream(Convert.FromBase64String(base64)))
        {
            return (PrinterSettings)bf.Deserialize(ms);
        }
    }
    catch (Exception)
    {
        return new PrinterSettings();
    }
}

Upvotes: 3

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