[RESOLVED] In VB6, PrintForm Method does not print contents of picture box on form

Hello,

I have a form and it contains a PictureBox control. AutoRedraw is set to True for both the form and the PictureBox. In the PictureBox I have done some drawing using the Line method.

I want to print the form and the graphics that appear in the PictureBox.
When I use the PrintForm method (Form1.PrintForm) the printed copy shows the form and the border of the PictureBox, but none of the graphics that were drawn in the PictureBox.

Can anyone suggest why the graphics aren't printing? Thank you.

I just did a quick test with a Picturebox and a button on the form. The picturebox's Autoredraw was set to True in the IDE, but not the form.

Code:

---

Option Explicit

Private Sub Command1_Click()
  Form1.PrintForm
End Sub

Private Sub Picture1_MouseMove(Button As Integer, Shift As Integer, X As Single, Y As Single)
  Static lx As Single, ly As Single
  If Button = vbLeftButton Then
    Picture1.Line (lx, ly)-(X, Y)
  End If
  lx = X: ly = Y
End Sub

---

I scribble a little bit in the picturebox and then printed and thought it was working as is. But then I noticed the drawing inside the picturebox was shifted.
The drawing of the AutoRedraw buffer of the picturebox seems to draw relative to the form, not the picturebox, so depending on where your picturebox is and perhaps the scale of the form relative to the picturebox you may not see the drawing as it will be drawn outside the bounds of the picturebox.

So I added a line of code to have the Picture object of the picturebox reference the Image object of the picturebox (the Image object is what is drawn into when you have AutoRedraw set), so the Picture is now the same as the Image. That seems to print fine.

Code:

---

Private Sub Command1_Click()
  Picture1.Picture = Picture1.Image
  Form1.PrintForm
End Sub

---

Thank you! It works perfectly. Thank you for taking the time to figure out a solution. It is greatly appreciated!

It may not be a problem using .printform for what you are doing here.
If there is other stuff on your form that is also important, you will find that .printform is not as sharp, nor as accurate as you desire.
When you reach that stage in the future (using .printform) yell out, and we can explore alternatives.

Rob
PS I do not use .printform these days.