PrintDialog: Customize for ALL apps

[a]

Not sure where to post this question.

I need to make a change to the standard PrintDialog, or have another form
popup along with it. I need to track the 'client to be billed' for each
print job, along with number of pages. One solution I see would be to
change the standard box, so when a user clicks Print in any app, they are
presented with a dropdown list of clients, and a record is added to a DB
with the selected client and the number of pages.

Another method may be to 'intercept' windows messages headed to a
printer????

Can someone guide me in the right direction here? I write in VB (VB.NET).


Thanks!

Kevin

 

[DNE]

I know this is not exactly what you asked, but allow me to explore another
option, possibly with less dependencies:

How about you prompt the user for a billing account before the printout
(like in PrintDocument.BeginPrint event) and count the pages in PrintPage
event, storing the record at EndPrint?

Ori

 

[a]

That would work for any app I write. . . . but I need a solution for any
print job (Word, Excel, etc.)
I see now that I wasn't clear about that in my first post.

Is there a way to solve this issue using vb.net?


Kevin

 

[Ying-Shen Yu[MSFT]]

Hi Kevin,

If I understand your question correctly, you need monitor the printer job
in your system, and account for the pages printers for every user.

You may take a look at the WMI events, we may get an Event when a printer
job was added to the print queue.

I found a link which gives an small sample on how to get the WMI events in
C# , you may try it to see if it could resolve your problem.
http://www.dotnet247.com/247reference/msgs/44/224530.aspx

Since I'm not an expert in WMI programming, you may ask post WMI issues, in
group microsoft.public.win32.programmer.wmi for further help.

Thanks!


Best regards,

Ying-Shen Yu [MSFT]
Microsoft Community Support
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