An easy way to customise the default Print dialog in an MFC app

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Overview

The CPrintDialog box is a standard system supplied resource used by just about every program under the sun that needs to print. But what if you need to customise it? What I present here is a quick and easy way to do this.

Stage 1 : Copy the common dialogs resource template

The first stage is to create in your project an exact copy of the existing dialog template used by the CPrintDialog class. I did this by copying the default source of this and pasting it into my applications .rc file. The default content of these can be found in the file PrnSetup.Dlg of your Visual C++ VC98\Include directory. In fact the default dialog templates for all the common dialog box's can be found here, so if you need to know a particular controls ID number, this is the place to look! See also the file Dlgs.h which includes the #define's of the actual controls on all the common dialog templates.

PRINTDLGORD DIALOG DISCARDABLE  32, 32, 288, 186
STYLE DS_MODALFRAME | WS_POPUP | WS_VISIBLE | WS_CAPTION | WS_SYSMENU |
      DS_CONTEXTHELP | DS_3DLOOK
CAPTION "Print"
FONT 8, "MS Sans Serif"
BEGIN
    GROUPBOX        "Printer",grp4,8,4,272,84,WS_GROUP
    LTEXT           "&Name:",stc6,16,20,36,8
    COMBOBOX        cmb4,52,18,152,152,CBS_DROPDOWNLIST | CBS_SORT |
                    WS_VSCROLL | WS_GROUP | WS_TABSTOP
    PUSHBUTTON      "&Properties",psh2,212,17,60,14,WS_GROUP
    LTEXT           "Status:",stc8,16,36,36,10,SS_NOPREFIX
    LTEXT           "",stc12,52,36,224,10,SS_NOPREFIX | SS_LEFTNOWORDWRAP
    LTEXT           "Type:",stc7,16,48,36,10,SS_NOPREFIX
    LTEXT           "",stc11,52,48,224,10,SS_NOPREFIX | SS_LEFTNOWORDWRAP
    LTEXT           "Where:",stc10,16,60,36,10,SS_NOPREFIX
    LTEXT           "",stc14,52,60,224,10,SS_NOPREFIX | SS_LEFTNOWORDWRAP
    LTEXT           "Comment:",stc9,16,72,36,10,SS_NOPREFIX
    LTEXT           "",stc13,52,72,152,10,SS_NOPREFIX | SS_LEFTNOWORDWRAP
    CONTROL         "Print to fi&le",chx1,"Button",BS_AUTOCHECKBOX |
                    WS_GROUP | WS_TABSTOP,212,70,64,12
    GROUPBOX        "Print range",grp1,8,92,144,64,WS_GROUP
    CONTROL         "&All",rad1,"Button",BS_AUTORADIOBUTTON | WS_GROUP |
                    WS_TABSTOP,16,106,64,12
    CONTROL         "Pa&ges",rad3,"Button",BS_AUTORADIOBUTTON,16,122,36,12
    CONTROL         "&Selection",rad2,"Button",BS_AUTORADIOBUTTON,16,138,64,
                    12
    RTEXT           "&from:",stc2,52,124,20,8
    EDITTEXT        edt1,74,122,26,12,WS_GROUP | ES_NUMBER
    RTEXT           "&to:",stc3,100,124,16,8
    EDITTEXT        edt2,118,122,26,12,WS_GROUP | ES_NUMBER
    GROUPBOX        "Copies",grp2,160,92,120,64,WS_GROUP
    LTEXT           "Number of &copies:",stc5,168,108,68,8
    EDITTEXT        edt3,240,106,32,12,WS_GROUP | ES_NUMBER
    ICON            "",ico3,162,124,76,24,WS_GROUP | SS_CENTERIMAGE
    CONTROL         "C&ollate",chx2,"Button",BS_AUTOCHECKBOX | WS_GROUP |
                    WS_TABSTOP,240,130,36,12
    DEFPUSHBUTTON   "OK",IDOK,180,164,48,14,WS_GROUP
    PUSHBUTTON      "Cancel",IDCANCEL,232,164,48,14
END

You will have to modify it slightly. In the example above you would need to change the PRINTDLGORD to the name of the dialog resource you want to call it locally in your own application. In my case this was IDD_PRINT. Make sure that when you do this that the #define IDD_PRINT x exists in your resource.h file.

Stage 2 : Add controls and wrap the dialog template

Add any controls to the dialog and lay it out as you need, then invoke ClassWizard so that you can wrap your new dialog resource in a class object. Name it what you want, but make sure you select the base class as CPrintDialog. Once this has been created you can add message handler etc for any extra buttons you that you add to your dialog resource.

Stage 3 : Using your new CMyPrintDialog class

To get your application to use this new CPrintDialog dialog, you need to add the following code to your CView::OnPreparePrinting() function:

    // replace the standard CPrintDialog with our custom one!
    delete pInfo->m_pPD ; // release previous MFC allocated dialog object
    pInfo->m_pPD = new CMyPrintDialog(false) ;
    pInfo->m_pPD->m_pd.nMinPage = 1 ;
    pInfo->m_pPD->m_pd.nMaxPage = 0xffff ;
    pInfo->m_pPD->m_pd.hInstance = AfxGetInstanceHandle() ;
    pInfo->m_pPD->m_pd.lpPrintTemplateName = MAKEINTRESOURCE(IDD_PRINT) ;
    pInfo->m_pPD->m_pd.Flags |= PD_ENABLEPRINTTEMPLATE ;

Stage 4 : Compile and run your application

That's it, you just need to write your handler from there!

Enjoy!