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From: "Randy Brukardt" <randy@rrsoftware.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: Prettty printed reports in MSWindows
Date: Fri, 2 May 2003 14:31:21 -0500
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Date: 2003-05-02T14:31:21-05:00
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Fionn mac Cuimhaill wrote in message
<05u4bvkvvh6r048psivlsa09fs90atisfp@4ax.com>...
>On Thu, 01 May 2003 17:32:26 -0500, Mark <no_no@dontspam.net> wrote:
>
>>I'm not used to working in MSWindows, and I'm not used to printing
paper.
>>
>>However, I am currently trying to figure out a good way to print some
>>formatted business reports.  So far it looks like I could write the
data
>>in RTF format and get Notepad to do the printing. Or I could write it
>>out in PS and use ghostscript ... maybe use groff to create the
>>postscript?
>>
>>How do others print out formatted reports with Ada?
>>
>>Mark
>
>Sigh. I am in exactly same position. I am using David Botton's
>GWindows to do Windows programming in Ada. It has printing support
>that will handle all the font control that you would want to do, but
>it is a very thin binding that is still very close to the underlying
>Windows printing API, i.e., using it to produce a usable document is a
>very tedious business.


On shortcut is to use the printing facilities included in the Rich Edit
control. I don't know about GWindows, but the full Claw has a binding to
that which makes it pretty easy. The basic idea is to load your output
text into a Rich Edit control (which supports fonts and colors, etc),
then print it. For instance, to print the context of a Rich Edit control
with 1 inch margins, the pseudo code would look like:

        --    Selection : Claw.Edit.Selection_Type;
        --    Last : Claw.Edit.Character_Index_Type;
        --    Printer : Claw.Canvas.Printer_Canvas_Type;
        -- begin
        --    -- Create an approriate printer, and call Start_Document.
        --    Selection := (First => 1, Last =>
Last_Character_Index(Edit));
        --    loop
        --        Claw.Canvas.Printer.Start_Page (Printer);
        --        -- Render any headers or footers here.
        --        Print_Range (Edit, Last, Printer,
        --                     Margins => (1440, 1440, 1440, 1440),
        --                     Format_Selection => Selection);
        --        Claw.Canvas.Printer.End_Page (Printer);
        --        exit when Last >= Selection.Last;
        --        Selection.First := Last;
        --    end loop;
        --    Finish_Format (Edit);
        --    Claw.Canvas.Printer.End_Document (Printer);
        -- end;

(This is from the Claw comments.) There is a working example in the Claw
examples.

I'd expect something similar to work with GWindows.

                Randy Brukardt.