Another DataGridView Printer

Introduction

I went looking for a class to do printing from a DataGridView, and none of them did all that I was looking for. I needed to print all pages, some pages, or the current selection; and I needed to not have objects, controls, or code from the printer object sprinkled through the rest of my code - i.e., it needed to be completely self-contained. Nothing I found met all those requirements, so I ended up writing my own.

Using the Code

To use the DGVPrinter class, you have two options. First, you can simply add the DGVPrinter.cs source file to your project, or second you can place the DLL in your "Bin" directory and add a reference to the DGVPrinter.dll to your project's references. In either case, to use the DGVPrinter, you will only need to add a "using DGVPrinter" to your code file, and create an instance of the object.

//
// The using block statement
//
using DGVPrinterHelper;

//
// The using block statement
//
imports DGVPrinterHelper;

For example, if you wanted to print a DataGridView when your user clicks a Print button on the toolbar, your code might look something like this:

//
// Printing the DataGridView Control
// in response to a toolbar button press
//
private void printToolStripButton_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    DGVPrinter printer = new DGVPrinter();
    printer.Title = "DataGridView Report";
    printer.SubTitle = "An Easy to Use DataGridView Printing Object";
    printer.SubTitleFormatFlags = StringFormatFlags.LineLimit | 
                                  StringFormatFlags.NoClip;
    printer.PageNumbers = true;
    printer.PageNumberInHeader = false;
    printer.PorportionalColumns = true;
    printer.HeaderCellAlignment = StringAlignment.Near;
    printer.Footer = "Your Company Name Here";
    printer.FooterSpacing = 15;

    printer.PrintDataGridView(datagridviewControl);
}

//
// Printing the DataGridView Control
// in response to a toolbar button press
//
Public Class Form1 
    Private Sub btnPrintGridview_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, _
	ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles btnPrintGridView.Click
        Dim Printer = New DGVPrinter
        Printer.Title = "DataGridView Report"
        Printer.SubTitle = "An Easy to Use DataGridView Printing Object"
        Printer.SubTitleFormatFlags = StringFormatFlags.LineLimit Or _
					StringFormatFlags.NoClip
        Printer.PageNumbers = True
        Printer.PageNumberInHeader = False
        Printer.PorportionalColumns = True
        Printer.HeaderCellAlignment = StringAlignment.Near
        Printer.Footer = "Your Company Name Here"
        Printer.FooterSpacing = 15
        Printer.PrintDataGridView(Me.DataGridView1)
    End Sub

The basic interface used here provides a neat, one-stop-shop for printing a DataGridView. But, what if you want to have more control over the printing process? Say you'd like to save your users' print preferences or provide a default printer? To help you with this, DGVPrinter provides a more complex interface. Here's an example where the calling program provides overrides to the PrinterSettings and the DefaultPageSettings:

//
// Printing the DataGridView Control
// in response to a toolbar button press – 
// the myprintsettings and mypagesettings objects are objects used by the local
// program to save printer and page settings
//
private void printToolStripButton_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    DGVPrinter printer = new DGVPrinter();
    printer.Title = "DataGridView Report";
    printer.SubTitle = "An Easy to Use DataGridView Printing Object";
    printer.SubTitleFormatFlags = StringFormatFlags.LineLimit | 
        StringFormatFlags.NoClip;
    printer.PageNumbers = true;
    printer.PageNumberInHeader = false;
    printer.PorportionalColumns = true;
    printer.HeaderCellAlignment = StringAlignment.Near;
    printer.Footer = "Your Company Name Here";
    printer.FooterSpacing = 15;

    // use saved settings
    if (null != myprintsettings) 
        printer.PrintDocument.PrinterSettings = myprintsettings;
    if (null != mypagesettings)
        printer.PrintDocument.DefaultPageSettings = mypagesettings;

    if (DialogResult.OK == printer.DisplayPrintDialog())  // replace DisplayPrintDialog() 
						   // with your own print dialog
    {
        // save users' settings 
        myprintsettings = printer.PrinterSettings;
        mypagesettings = printer.PageSettings;

        // print without displaying the printdialog
        printer.PrintNoDisplay(datagridviewControl);
    }
}

DGVPrinter's various settings provide good control of all aspects of printing on the page. You can set the Title and Subtitles, add a footer, and control whether the page number prints in the header or footer. DGVPrinter supports Right-to-Left printing for non-Western languages and includes a drawing override for situations where a cell or column has onPaint overridden in the source DataGridView control. While the default styles for the printed DataGridView are taken from the source DataGridView control, DGVPrinter also provides many attributes that allow you to control the styling of almost every aspect of the printout.

History

Version 1.0 - Initial publication
Version 1.1 - Added footer handling, and allows the page number to print in the header or footer, and if it should print on the same line as the header or footer
Version 1.2 - Finally (I believe!), fixed the string/column alignment problems. Also prints cell background colors properly, respecting the alternating rows style
Version 1.3 - Added support for printing columns that contain images
Version 1.4 - Added support for printing directly to a provided Graphics object
Version 2.0 - Added support for printing images on the page
Version 3.0 - Breaking changes! Please read!
1. Added support for cells/rows that span more than one page of depth. If a cell would run off the bottom of the page, the "KeepRowsTogether" property determines if a partial row is printed or a new page is started.
2. Added support for Setting the styles for Row and Column Headers. The properties for setting Header cell styles changed names, and the return type of "PrintColumnHeaders" changed. This can cause your program to not compile/run!
3. Added a default value so row headers will show up if they are supposed to be "visible"
4. Added title and subtitle spacers. These will help give you control of the whitespace below the Title and Subtitle.
5. Compiled version for VB and other language support
Version 3.1 - Fix cell background color printing
Version 3.2 - Fixes for Embedded Print function
Version 3.3 - Unlikely but possible breaking change
1. Add Delegate to allow "Owner Drawing" of cells, including row and column headers
2. Add better support for cell size, data size or proportional scaling of columns. The identifier 'StringHeight' has been changed to 'DataHeight' since the size of an image is now properly accounted for. This may break your code if you depend on this feature.
3. Bug Fixes
Version 3.4 - Add support for Alternating Rows when ColumnStyles are overridden
Version 3.5 - More fixes for Alternating Rows ColumnStyles
Version 3.6 - Fix for Imbedded Image drawing; images now draw at original pixel sizes without scaling
Version 3.7 - Fix for large text wrapping

Gratitude, kudos and acknowledgements to everyone who suggested a feature or function or found a bug. DGV Printer just wouldn't be the same without everyone's ideas and input!