Question

Previewing, printing and scaling metafiles

Asked by: christianlepsy

I am trying to print to a full page (2400 by 3112 printer-wise, 960 by 1244 screen-wise).
I've tried creating a form that would be 960 by 1244, but it never worked. it stops at 768, the screen resolution known by windows.
I've tried all sorts of things, but nothing seems to work properly. I've been working on creating a metafile to handle storing the image, but, again, bitmaps suffer the same limitations as do forms, as evidenced by playing back the metafile into the on-screen bitmap.
Here are the goals I have to meet:
1- full-page printing
2- full-preview capability in a what you see is what you get
3- full-scaling capacity on-screen
The closest I've come to is to write 2 metafiles for each page, one for the printer, one for the screen. However, the screen preview is not properly proportionned vertically (see above limitation on form height). It's possible to create a metafile that is 960 by 1244, but on viewing it, it gets cut down to 960 by 768, thus being totaly useless as a preview form at 100 % scale,
I use delphi 2.win 98.
Thanks for the reply

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Asked On
2003-04-05 at 08:16:12ID20575400
Tags

delphi

,

metafile

Topics

Delphi Programming

,

Delphi Printing

Participating Experts
2
Points
50
Comments
7

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Answers

 

by: msa2003Posted on 2003-04-05 at 08:58:25ID: 8275499

Use TPrinter object to paint on the printer device context canvas instead.

Use TCanvas.StretchDraw method to scale metafile. Thist means that you might specify metafile as a TCanvas.StretchDraw parameter.

Use Delphi online help for more details.

Best regards
Serge

 

by: Sam80Posted on 2003-04-05 at 09:10:41ID: 8275547

I am so glad that you are also intersted in  metafile

here is the preview function code
I have no time to write the note , sorry about that.
Hope it helps .

pnltball : Tpanel;
gbprint : TgroupBox;
sgqcprint: TstringGrid;

procedure TFrmQcReportPart.TBtnPreviewClick(Sender: TObject);
var
MFC:Tmetafilecanvas;
w,h:integer;
begin

try
 if gbprint.Height < trunc(gbprint.Width * (printer.PageHeight/printer.PageWidth)) then
  gbprint.Height := trunc(gbprint.Width * (printer.PageHeight/printer.PageWidth));
except
 showmessage('');
 exit;
end;

 if TBtnPreview.Caption='preview' then
  begin
    sgqcprint.Height :=sgqcprint.DefaultRowHeight * (sgqcprint.RowCount-1) + sgqcprint.RowCount ;
    gbtail.Top := sgqcprint.Top + sgqcprint.Height ;
    w:=gbprint.Width;
    h:=gbprint.Height ;
    imgpreview.SetBounds(0,0,w ,h);
    imgpreview.Picture.Metafile.Width := w;
    imgpreview.Picture.Metafile.Height := h;
    pnlpreview.SetBounds(gbprint.Left,gbprint.Top,w,h);

    MFC:= TMetaFileCanvas.Create(imgpreview.Picture.Metafile,0) ;
    try
      gbprint.PaintTo(MFC.Handle ,0,0);
    finally
      MFC.Free;
    end;

    pnlpreview.Visible:=true;
    gbprint.Visible:=false;

    TBtnPreview.Caption:='CancelPreview';
  end
 else
  begin
   sgqcprint.Height:=sgqcprint.DefaultRowHeight * sgqcprint.RowCount + sgqcprint.RowCount ;
   gbtail.Top := sgqcprint.Top + sgqcprint.Height ;
   gbprint.Height:= gbtail.Top +  gbtail.Height;
    gbprint.Visible:=true;
    pnlpreview.Visible:=false;
    TBtnPreview.Caption:='Preview';
  end;
end;

 

by: Sam80Posted on 2003-04-05 at 09:17:29ID: 8275583

Oh, in another hand ,I dont agree with the Serge's advise.

if you wanna scale a metafile, you can not use the tcanvas.strechdraw to scale a metafile as you setbounds the Tpicture component , the ordinary result is that your Tpicture has change the scale but the metafile field in the picture is still in the former size.

The only way as I know to "scale" is to repaint the metafile to the canvas ,yes, it's the only successful way I have been told and I had tried before.

Hope it can help.


sam

 

by: msa2003Posted on 2003-04-05 at 12:24:08ID: 8276226

Sam80: You are not agree with me...

> The only way as I know to "scale" is to repaint the
> metafile to the canvas ,yes, it's the only successful
> way I have been told and I had tried before.

Which is done with StretchDraw() method...

MFC is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation. You shouldn't use it to create the class reference :o)

Best regards
Serge

 

by: christianlepsyPosted on 2003-04-05 at 17:34:36ID: 8277130

The trick ive tried is to create a metafile with the TPrinter's scaling and another with the screen's scaling. Trying to view a printer-oriented metafile on a screen has led, up to now, to losing both the right half of the picture and the bottom 2/3 of it, even if I try to prefit my receiving canvas to 960 by 1244. Data is lost, thus making previewing the page before printing totaly inefective.

As complementary info, Ive tried to create a canvas bigger then my screee..width, screen.height (windows params). It seems to be impossible.

Sam, I'll give a try with what seems the core of the trick, passing arguments to the metafile before creating it. I'll be back to you with this.

 

by: christianlepsyPosted on 2003-04-11 at 13:58:08ID: 8315983

OK, Here is what I finally did.


Flogh :=GetDeviceCaps(Printer.handle, LOGPIXELSX);
Flogv := GetDeviceCaps(Printer.handle, LOGPIXELSY);
FPageheight := printer.pageheight;
FPagewidth := printer.pagewidth;

// initialize printer metafile
FPMetafile := TMetafile.create;
FPMetafile.width := FPagewidth;
FPMetafile.Height := FPageheight;
   try
   pcanvas := TMetafilecanvas.create(FPMetafile,printer.handle);
   buildpage(pcanvas,flogh,flogv); // the draw routine that builds the picture
   finally
   pcanvas.free;
   end;
// set size of TImage for viewer
   preview.width := muldiv(fpagewidth,visualisateur.pixelsperinch,flogh);
   preview.height := muldiv(fpageheight,visualisateur.pixelsperinch,flogv);
//Play the metafile to the screen   playtoviewer(getfirst,rect(0,0,preview.width,preview.height));
;


I dont lose any data that way. The result is not sqished verticaly,
Note: my code differs slightly, since I use metafiles to store multiple pages in a TList of metafiles. That lets me view any page in any order. Metafiles are small relative to bitmapis, so they take very little space.

If anyone wants the formulas (and the code) to set the zoom to any value, ask.

 

by: christianlepsyPosted on 2003-04-11 at 14:05:52ID: 8316044

The truth is, both answers combined gave a better result then each taken alone. However since Sam did a lot of work he deserves the points.

I've built a set of coordinate transforms that lets me scale the image from 1 to 100 %. However,even if the formulas would let me go beyond 100 % there seems to be a limit somewhere concerning size. Any tip would be welcomed.

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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