Print ListCtrl on multiple pages

The demo consists of a doc/view-framework with a CListView-class. It has a button to fill with data and another to print the stuff.

The Problem

MFC has no built-in feature for printing a List Control. Some approaches can be found on the internet but they always have the problem that if you have more columns then will fit to a single page, then the rest is clipped away and not printed.

The Solution

My class manages:

• Printing a CListCtrl or CListView with support for multiple pages
• The first column is printed again on each page
• The width of the columns are used for printing
• Columns can be sorted (nothing new, I know)

My appraoch is mainly based on the fabulous work of Dan Pilat with his article Printing with MFC Made Easy.

My work was to build a kind of wrapper over his classes and do the newpage-logic. Each single page is printed just by his classes with some overriden virtual functions.

The printing from the CListView then looks like this:

void CListPrintView::OnFilePrintDirect() 
{
	CWaitCursor		wait;
	CListCtrl		&listctrl = GetListCtrl();

	CListCtrlPrintJob	job(&listctrl, !m_bUseSetup);
	job.Print();
}

The trick is to calculate a translater for Screen [Pixels] -> Printer [mm]. Then I know how much space a column needs on the paper. This helps me calculating the amount of columns that fit to a page.

I then loop through all columns and count their width.

When its time to begin a new one, I define a print-job the Dan Pilat way.

void CListCtrlPrintJob::OnPrint()
{
	...

	widthOfPage = m_pListCtrl->GetColumnWidth(0);
	iStart      = 1;

	for( i=1 ; i<m_ColCount ; i++ )
	{
		widthThisCol = m_pListCtrl->GetColumnWidth(i);
		bNewPage = FALSE;

		if( widthOfPage+widthThisCol > paperWidthInPixel )
		{	
			// not enough place on side, begin new one
			bNewPage = TRUE;
		}
		else
		{
			// also print the last one
			if( i == (m_ColCount-1) )
				bNewPage = TRUE;
			
			// this col needs this space:
			widthOfPage += widthThisCol;
		}

		if( bNewPage )
		{
			// ok, print it on a new page
			CListCtrlDataPage data(this, m_pListCtrl, iStart, i);
			data.Print();

			iStart = i+1;
			widthOfPage = m_pListCtrl->GetColumnWidth(0);
		}
	}
}

CListCtrlDataPage is derived from GPrintUnit and also has this print-function:

BOOL CListCtrlDataPage::Print()
{
	...

	zeilenMax = m_pListCtrl->GetItemCount();
		
	for( zeile=0 ; zeile<zeilenMax ; zeile++ )
	{
		nRC = StartRow();
		// first Col
		if( m_pListCtrl->GetItemText(zeile, 0, szText, 
                                                             sizeof(szText)) )
			PrintCol(colId, szText, DT_LEFT);
		colId++;
		for( spalte=m_firstCol ; spalte<=m_lastCol ; spalte++ )
		{
			if( m_pListCtrl->GetItemText(zeile, spalte, 
                                                     szText, sizeof(szText)) )
				PrintCol(colId, szText, DT_LEFT);
			colId++;
		}

		EndRow();
	}

	EndPage();
	
	...
}

Do you have Enchancements (e.g. a print-preview) ?

Let me know: Markus Loibl, Germany