VB.Net Change Default Printer Settings by code

To print in landscape mode can you try the below code.

PrintDocument1.DefaultPageSettings.Landscape = True
PrintDocument1.Print()

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Else please post the code that you are trying and I can help further.

You  can try this below sample which works. You can give a file path in filepath variable below to see how it prints.

Public Sub Printing()
    Try
        streamToPrint = New StreamReader(filePath)
        Try
            printFont = New Font("Arial", 10)
            Dim pd As New PrintDocument()
            AddHandler pd.PrintPage, AddressOf pd_PrintPage
            pd.PrinterSettings.PrinterName = printer
            ' Set the page orientation to landscape.
            pd.DefaultPageSettings.Landscape = True
            pd.Print()
        Finally
            streamToPrint.Close()
        End Try
    Catch ex As Exception
        MessageBox.Show(ex.Message)
    End Try
End Sub

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Hi

Thanks for the replies

Both of these answers refer to the printing of a document.    As I indicated above that's not  what I am trying to do.   I  need to be able to access the default printer preferences and change that

Thanks

Private Sub Form1_Load(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load

        ComboBox1.Items.Clear()
        For Each printer As String In Printing.PrinterSettings.InstalledPrinters
            ComboBox1.Items.Add(printer)
        Next printer

    End Sub

    Private Sub Button1_Click(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click
        If Me.ComboBox1.SelectedItem IsNot Nothing Then
                Shell(String.Format("rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry /y /n ""{0}""", ComboBox1.SelectedItem))
        End If
    End Sub

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Hi, many thanks for your reply

Two things
First, this definitely changes the default printer but doesn't allow me to change any preferences as the questions above re landscape/portrait etc

Second, I get an error -
'PInvokeStackImbalance' has detected a problem in 'C:\Users\User\AppData\Local\Temporary Projects\WindowsApplication1\bin\Debug\WindowsApplication1.vshost.exe'.
in the line
 Call SendMessage(HWND_BROADCAST, WM_WININICHANGE, 0, "windows")

Apologies I missed your question that you wanted to change the printer settings instead of the settings of particular document, you will have to use win 32 APIs to achieve it. (SetPrinter in winspool.drv).
Please refer the MS knowledge base article230743. The code is VB code, it might need some minor syntactical changes for VB.NET. Let me know if you need help in getting this working in VB.NET

Apologies I missed your question that you wanted to change the printer settings instead of the settings of particular document, you will have to use win 32 APIs to achieve it. (SetPrinter in winspool.drv).
Please refer the MS knowledge base article230743. The code is VB code, it might need some minor syntactical changes for VB.NET. Let me know if you need help in getting this working in VB.NET

Hi
I got the errors down from 136 to 23 and then gave up.  I have the feeling that so many changes are being made it will never work.    I'm certain there must be something better in .net.  I'm amazed that there is not something more accessible.   Surely I'm not the only persons who ever required this ability

Give me couple of errors, I have resolved compilation issues. Just need to test it.

Thank you for the efforts

Hi PNRT, I am still working on it, please give me some more time to finish this off. Apologies for the delay.
Thanks,
karrtik

Private Sub Form1_Load(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load

        ComboBox1.Items.Clear()
        For Each printer As String In Printing.PrinterSettings.InstalledPrinters
            ComboBox1.Items.Add(printer)
        Next printer
End Sub

    Private Sub Button1_Click(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click
        If Me.ComboBox1.SelectedItem IsNot Nothing Then
                Shell(String.Format("rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry /y /n ""{0}""", ComboBox1.SelectedItem))
        End If
    End Sub

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Hi Ali, Many thanks.
Again, this works to change the default printer but doesn't allow me to change the settings.   Am I doing something wrong?

Hi PNRT
You can do every thing you want here, by using this command:
Shell(String.Format("rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry ...

Rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry

PrintUI.DLL User's Guide and Reference - Microsoft

Hi Ali

From all of the above, the closest I can get with this is to open the printer preferences box.

From this previous Experts Exchange answer it appears that what I want to do is not possible

http://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/21999471/RunDLL-the-Printer-to-SET-Landscape.html

Would you agree?

PNRT, please give me time till tomorrow so that I can say it's not possible, as of now I'm confident.

Many thanks Karrtik.   Appreciated

Hi PNRT, I was able to achieve what is mentioned in the below article from Microsoft via VB.NET.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/230743230743
1> One approach was to purely convert the above code which was in VB6 to VB.NET and use p invoke.
2> The other was to write a C++/CLI library/layer which can be invoked from VB.NET referencing the C++/CLI library as normal .NET DLL.
I prefer the 2nd one since the 1st One involves lot of type conversions and Marshalling code in VB.NET using PInvoke.
Both work perfectly fine.
However I wanted to ask one more question, this is successfully changing the property from portrait or landscape or another property for any printer configured on that machine where this VB.NET app was executed. So that after this change, any application using the default printer shall print documents as landscape. But this change to printer settings is limited to the machine where this change was done using VB.NET code. This change would not be applicable to other machines where same printer might be configured. Does that work for you?

Hi
Many thanks for the effort
Yes that would work correctly.  The printer is local to a single machine and is not shared.
All I need to do is to change the settings of the local default printer from my the code.

Ok, then I shall do some clean up of the code and add some comments and share it with you.
Are both approaches fine with you, or do you want to take my recommended approach (2) or do you want to go with approach 1?

If it is possible, I would really prefer both, just in case :-)

Sure, give me some time, I shall give one first with clean up and then share the other, hope that is fine with you. :-)

Appreciate the time Karrtik, thanks

Few hours more PNRT, I am almost done, apologies for the delay, was stuck with something else more urgent.

Hi
Apologies for the late reply, been away for two days
Couldn't get the solution working as the PrinterSettingsCLI.dll is not in the printersettings\PrinterSettings\Debug folder where it was originally, according to the properties.   Also could not find it in the rest of the solution.
Many Thanks

Extract the code, open the solution file (.sln),it shall have two projects. Right click on the solution in solution Explorer and rebuild the entire solution. This should build the dll and exe.

To make things little easier, I have taken the screenshots of the steps to be followed to download the code and building the solution. Please see the attached word document. let me know if you need any further help. Thanks,
karrtik
PNRT_Print_Code_Setup_Steps.docx

Works Great.  Many Thanks

You are welcome PNRT :)

Hi
Not sure if you will see this karrtik, but when I add am app with this .dll to a clients PC it crashes.  I have downloaded the C++ Redistributable and ran it on the clients PC but still no joy.  Works OK on my laptops with VS on but not on any other machines. Any ideas?