Since the PDF-Printing-Topic comes up occasionally - sometimes with recommendations and links to
VB-Modules which try to write a PDF-file directly - the PDF-support of the cairo-lib (wrapped conveniently
in vbRichClient5.dll) is "miles ahead" of all these approaches in terms of functionality (the supported
Drawing-Commands) - and reliability (correctness of the generated PDF-Output).
So here's a small VB6-Demo which shows how to use a vbRichClient5.cCairoSurface instance, which
can also be created as "being of cairo-SurfaceType PDF" instead of the usual "ImgSurface-Type" which
is pixelbased and used for OnScreen-Output (BTW, another true VectorSurface-type is e.g. SVG,
which other than PDF can not only be written directly, but also read).
Anyways, in the end we are able to perform the very same Drawing-Commands against a CairoSurface
of type PDF, the same way as we are wont, when we take a CairoSurface of Type "Image" (which then
just renders antialiased against a Pixel-area to bring out the results of the VectorDrawing-Commands).
That transparently usable multi-surface-support of Cairo is one of the greatest advantages of this library IMO.
The demo will print two Pages (only the first one is currently rendered and shown as an OnScreen-Preview) -
but in the PDF-Document we will end up with a Portrait-Page - followed by a Landscape-Page with somewhat
different (simpler) content ( just wanted to show how to handle the swapping of Page-Orientations "on the go",
so that's the purpose of the simpler Landscape-Page).
Ok, here's the Demo-Code (which references the vbRichClient5 dependency, you will
have to download and install first, to be able to run the Example... from vbRichClient.com).
SimplePDF.zip
And here's a ScreenShot of the VB-OnScreen-Preview of the first Page - accompanied to the right
with the Preview of the PDF-Viewer (adjusted to show the two contained PDF-Document-Pages).
![]()
Edit: added a missing info to the RichClient-Library, this PDF-Demo depends on.
Olaf
VB-Modules which try to write a PDF-file directly - the PDF-support of the cairo-lib (wrapped conveniently
in vbRichClient5.dll) is "miles ahead" of all these approaches in terms of functionality (the supported
Drawing-Commands) - and reliability (correctness of the generated PDF-Output).
So here's a small VB6-Demo which shows how to use a vbRichClient5.cCairoSurface instance, which
can also be created as "being of cairo-SurfaceType PDF" instead of the usual "ImgSurface-Type" which
is pixelbased and used for OnScreen-Output (BTW, another true VectorSurface-type is e.g. SVG,
which other than PDF can not only be written directly, but also read).
Anyways, in the end we are able to perform the very same Drawing-Commands against a CairoSurface
of type PDF, the same way as we are wont, when we take a CairoSurface of Type "Image" (which then
just renders antialiased against a Pixel-area to bring out the results of the VectorDrawing-Commands).
That transparently usable multi-surface-support of Cairo is one of the greatest advantages of this library IMO.
The demo will print two Pages (only the first one is currently rendered and shown as an OnScreen-Preview) -
but in the PDF-Document we will end up with a Portrait-Page - followed by a Landscape-Page with somewhat
different (simpler) content ( just wanted to show how to handle the swapping of Page-Orientations "on the go",
so that's the purpose of the simpler Landscape-Page).
Ok, here's the Demo-Code (which references the vbRichClient5 dependency, you will
have to download and install first, to be able to run the Example... from vbRichClient.com).
SimplePDF.zip
And here's a ScreenShot of the VB-OnScreen-Preview of the first Page - accompanied to the right
with the Preview of the PDF-Viewer (adjusted to show the two contained PDF-Document-Pages).
Edit: added a missing info to the RichClient-Library, this PDF-Demo depends on.
Olaf