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Q173981: PRB: Behavior Differences of Print Dialog on Different Platforms

Article: Q173981
Product(s): Microsoft Visual Basic for Windows
Version(s): 4.0,5.0,6.0
Operating System(s): 
Keyword(s): kbprint kbAPI kbCmnDlg kbCmnDlgPage kbCmnDlgPrint kbSDKWin32 kbVBp kbVBp400 kbVBp500 kb
Last Modified: 13-MAY-2002

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The information in this article applies to:

- Microsoft Visual Basic Learning Edition for Windows, versions 5.0, 6.0, used with:
   - the operating system: Microsoft Windows XP 
   - the operating system: Microsoft Windows 2000 
   - the operating system: Microsoft Windows NT 
   - Microsoft Visual Studio.NET (2002), Professional Edition 
- Microsoft Visual Basic Professional Edition for Windows, versions 5.0, 6.0, used with:
   - the operating system: Microsoft Windows XP 
   - the operating system: Microsoft Windows 2000 
   - the operating system: Microsoft Windows NT 
- Microsoft Visual Basic Enterprise Edition for Windows, versions 5.0, 6.0, used with:
   - the operating system: Microsoft Windows XP 
   - the operating system: Microsoft Windows 2000 
   - the operating system: Microsoft Windows NT 
- Microsoft Visual Basic Standard Edition, 32-bit, for Windows, version 4.0, used with:
   - the operating system: Microsoft Windows XP 
   - the operating system: Microsoft Windows 2000 
   - the operating system: Microsoft Windows NT 
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SYMPTOMS
========

On Windows XP, Windows 2000, or Windows NT 4.0, when you call the ShowPrinter
method of the CommonDialog control, some of the properties of the Printer
object, such as the Copies and the Orientation properties, are not affected by
changes that the user selects in the Print dialog box.

This problem does not occur with the same properties of the Printer object on
Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition (Me), Microsoft Windows 98, or Microsoft
Windows 95.

CAUSE
=====

This problem occurs because the Printer object and the CommonDialog control do
not share information. The object and the control have their own device context.
For more information, see the "References" section.

RESOLUTION
==========

You can work around this problem for the properties that the CommonDialog
control exposes. To demonstrate this, replace the code for Form1 of the sample
project in the "More Information" section with the following code, which assigns
the property values from the CommonDialog control to the Printer object:

      With CommonDialog1
          .ShowPrinter
          Printer.Copies = .Copies
          Printer.Orientation = .Orientation
          Debug.Print "Copies = " & CStr(Printer.Copies) & vbCrLf & _
                      "Orientation = " & CStr(Printer.Orientation)
        End With

STATUS
======

This behavior is by design.

MORE INFORMATION
================

The CommonDialog control only exposes the following properties:

- Copies
- FromPage
- ToPage
- Orientation
- PrinterDefault

If you need any other information from this dialog box, you must use the Print
dialog box application programming interface (API) functions (either the
PrintDlg or the PageSetupDlg function) that access and change the printer
properties. Because of packing alignment issues for structures in Visual Basic
6.0, calling Print dialog box functions directly is unnecessarily complex.
Therefore, Microsoft recommends that you call these functions from a C
dynamic-link library (DLL).


Steps to Reproduce the Behavior
-------------------------------

1. Create a new Standard EXE project. Form1 is created by default.

2. Add a CommandButton control and a CommonDialog control to Form1. The controls
  are named Command1 and CommonDialog1 by default.

3. Add the following code to Form1:

  Private Sub Command1_Click()
      With CommonDialog1
          .ShowPrinter
          Debug.Print "Copies = " & CStr(Printer.Copies) & vbCrLf & _
                      "Orientation = " & CStr(Printer.Orientation)
        End With

4. Press F5 to run the application.

5. Click Command1.

6. In the Print dialog box, change the number of copies and the orientation, and
  then click OK. Notice that Copies and Orientation appear as 1 in the Debug
  (Immediate) window, regardless of the settings that you selected in the Print
  dialog box.


REFERENCES
==========

For additional information about the CommonDialog control, click the article
number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

  Q198712 PRB: CommonDialog Changes System Wide Printer Properties

Additional query words:

======================================================================
Keywords          : kbprint kbAPI kbCmnDlg kbCmnDlgPage kbCmnDlgPrint kbSDKWin32 kbVBp kbVBp400 kbVBp500 kbVBp600 kbGrpDSVB kbDSupport 
Technology        : kbVBSearch kbAudDeveloper kbZNotKeyword6 kbZNotKeyword2
Version           : :4.0,5.0,6.0
Issue type        : kbprb

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