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  • about printing out (forms) in VB.NET

Hi,

I found some difficultes in writing a topic subject, so i'll try to explain what i mean and i need your help guys.
Actually, most of my VB.NET projects consists of SQL Server things and printing out filled forms and receipts, etc...
as you know, or at least as i see, the printing class in VB.NET is very generic and need lot of works to print a good form that contains logo, slogans, Name, ....... footer and so on.
I hope that i described the topic correctly, now my challenge is to do my own class to simplify the printing process, but before doing that, my direct question is: can i find a good printing SDK or class in order to make my task very easier ??

thanks in advance.
When I worked for a short period of time with .net I had a similar issue regarding outputting reports but I didn't really want to use any 3rd party classes nor report frameworks(like crystal reports) so I wrote some classes that generated them as html documents from there you can save them as files, show them within the embedded browser control and print them. Another advantage is that you can share them online much easily as web pages. Something like that more or less.
Not exactly what you asked for, but why not consider using pdfs?

Use a pdf form as a template and then fill it in programmatically and then print it. From experience, this gives you almost complete control over the layout minus the technical worries.
scorpioxy wroteNot exactly what you asked for, but why not consider using pdfs?

Use a pdf form as a template and then fill it in programmatically and then print it. From experience, this gives you almost complete control over the layout minus the technical worries.
it sounds a good idea, can you explain how to do that, i mean what class do you use to manipulate PDF files ?
You'll need to use a third-party library for that. I've successfully used iTextSharp a couple of times for pdf manipulation. If you haven't done this before, you'll need to do some reading. But basically the process is:
- Create one or more pdf form template(s) using a pdf creator from Adobe or otherwise.
- From within your code, clone the template and fill in the form fields using iTextSharp
- Display pdf or print it

Ask, if you need more help.