Priniting Internals

Hi,
Here's another printing related query.
I want to know what happens when we say print a file, in terms of GDI and DC
etc.
I mean how the OS uses the GDI to get data on the surface, creates another
surface where it puts the data to be printed and then finally send it to
printer.
Actually in pocket PC there is no printing support. So if we have to do the
printing job, what are the functionalities required that need to be taken
care of.
Please suggest.

--
GD Shukla

Steve
Tue Apr 11 09:19:20 CDT 2006

If the device you are targeting doesn't already have printing support you
really should look into third party solutions there is at least one called
"PrintCE" (I think) that has been around for a while so it should be pretty
robust. Trying to re-create what they have done is a monumental task not
really worth the effort in most cases.

--
Steve Maillet
EmbeddedFusion
www.EmbeddedFusion.com
smaillet at EmbeddedFusion dot com

Ginny
Tue Apr 11 09:17:22 CDT 2006

Printing from a PocketPC could be as simple as sending output through a
serial port with appropriate control characters embedded in the stream. It
just depends on the particular printer. There's a 3rd party product called
PrinterCE from Fieldsoft that is popular that might be worth a look.

--
Ginny Caughey
.NET Compact Framework MVP


"gd.shukla" <gd.shukla@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:AA3902A3-5518-480B-901A-B1838DF1A05E@microsoft.com...
> Hi,
> Here's another printing related query.
> I want to know what happens when we say print a file, in terms of GDI and
> DC
> etc.
> I mean how the OS uses the GDI to get data on the surface, creates another
> surface where it puts the data to be printed and then finally send it to
> printer.
> Actually in pocket PC there is no printing support. So if we have to do
> the
> printing job, what are the functionalities required that need to be taken
> care of.
> Please suggest.
>
> --
> GD Shukla

gd
Tue Apr 11 23:59:01 CDT 2006

first of all thanks for your answers.
I did look at PrintCE and it does appear to be a better choice rather than
doing what has already been done.
And we are going to suggest the customer about that but the point is what if
the customer says he doesn't want to go with a third party solution and wants
us to develop the similar thing. With that perspective, I was trying to lok
deeper into the printing mechanism. Like how to take the data and send it to
printer.

And steve, as you answered in my other post, there is a lot of printing
support on top of printer driver. Is this task really that much cumbersome.

Could anyone of you please try to explain to me like how to get the data
from a document which might contain text and images, create its bitmap and
send those rgb values to printer.
The main question is how to create a bitmap of the text and image combined.
Please suggest.
--
GD Shukla


"Steve Maillet (eMVP)" wrote:

> If the device you are targeting doesn't already have printing support you
> really should look into third party solutions there is at least one called
> "PrintCE" (I think) that has been around for a while so it should be pretty
> robust. Trying to re-create what they have done is a monumental task not
> really worth the effort in most cases.
>
> --
> Steve Maillet
> EmbeddedFusion
> www.EmbeddedFusion.com
> smaillet at EmbeddedFusion dot com
>
>
>

Dean
Wed Apr 12 07:59:33 CDT 2006

Well, when you quote them many thousands of dollars for developing the
support yourself, will that help influence their decision?

--
Dean Ramsier - eMVP
BSQUARE Corporation


"gd.shukla" <gd.shukla@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:19006191-49B3-4DB1-9C7F-626A4EA02F8B@microsoft.com...
> first of all thanks for your answers.
> I did look at PrintCE and it does appear to be a better choice rather than
> doing what has already been done.
> And we are going to suggest the customer about that but the point is what
> if
> the customer says he doesn't want to go with a third party solution and
> wants
> us to develop the similar thing. With that perspective, I was trying to
> lok
> deeper into the printing mechanism. Like how to take the data and send it
> to
> printer.
>
> And steve, as you answered in my other post, there is a lot of printing
> support on top of printer driver. Is this task really that much
> cumbersome.
>
> Could anyone of you please try to explain to me like how to get the data
> from a document which might contain text and images, create its bitmap and
> send those rgb values to printer.
> The main question is how to create a bitmap of the text and image
> combined.
> Please suggest.
> --
> GD Shukla
>
>
> "Steve Maillet (eMVP)" wrote:
>
>> If the device you are targeting doesn't already have printing support you
>> really should look into third party solutions there is at least one
>> called
>> "PrintCE" (I think) that has been around for a while so it should be
>> pretty
>> robust. Trying to re-create what they have done is a monumental task not
>> really worth the effort in most cases.
>>
>> --
>> Steve Maillet
>> EmbeddedFusion
>> www.EmbeddedFusion.com
>> smaillet at EmbeddedFusion dot com
>>
>>
>>

Steve
Wed Apr 12 09:41:22 CDT 2006

As Dean points out, I'm sure the quote for many thousands of dollars and
many months of time will sway their view dramatically.

You need to deal with several things to get printing to work in an
application where the OS has no support. You need to:
1) set up a bitmap and a device context for it that reflects the
characteristics of the printer you want to print to.
2) Then you need to draw to that DC/bitmap for a single page.
3) Next you then need to know the protocol the printer "talks" and translate
the information from the bitmap into something the printer will understand.
4) You then need to understand the transport the printer is connected to
(IR, Ether net, USB, etc...) and send the data to the printer.

Doing this in a manner that is generally useful is a HUGE and monumental
task not for the faint of heart.
(BTW: Last I knew HP also has a printing solution for CE devices and HP
printers)

--
Steve Maillet
EmbeddedFusion
www.EmbeddedFusion.com
smaillet at EmbeddedFusion dot com

r_z_aret
Wed Apr 12 17:02:36 CDT 2006

On Tue, 11 Apr 2006 21:59:01 -0700, gd.shukla <gd.shukla@hotmail.com>
wrote:

>first of all thanks for your answers.
>I did look at PrintCE and it does appear to be a better choice rather than
>doing what has already been done.

I provide support, mainly for one particular customer. It is
appropriately boring, meaning once I got my code to work, the utility
worked flawlessly.

>And we are going to suggest the customer about that but the point is what if
>the customer says he doesn't want to go with a third party solution and wants
>us to develop the similar thing. With that perspective, I was trying to lok
>deeper into the printing mechanism. Like how to take the data and send it to
>printer.

I'll add to the list of advantages to going with PrinterCE: Field
Software specializes in printer support. That means they have seen and
dealt with a lot of bugs you won't see for years. And they support
many printers over several types of connections (serial, network, IR,
...).

>
>And steve, as you answered in my other post, there is a lot of printing
>support on top of printer driver. Is this task really that much cumbersome.
>
>Could anyone of you please try to explain to me like how to get the data
>from a document which might contain text and images, create its bitmap and
>send those rgb values to printer.
>The main question is how to create a bitmap of the text and image combined.
>Please suggest.

The utilities from Field Software provide a Device Context, very my
like the printer support in "big" Windows. Printing a bitmap is done
by drawing it on the right Device Context.

-----------------------------------------
To reply to me, remove the underscores (_) from my email address (and please indicate which newsgroup and message).

Robert E. Zaret, eMVP
PenFact, Inc.
20 Park Plaza, Suite 478
Boston, MA 02116
www.penfact.com

gd
Thu Apr 13 01:38:01 CDT 2006

thanks a lot for your very useful replies.
But there is one small obstacle, PrintCE supports some printers and the
printer that we are going to use is not in the list and we are not sure, if
its a standard printer or has some catch with its interface. So we might have
to build the whole thing by ourselves. alas .............

there is something else I want to know. What is the Windows Ce version
pocket pc based upon. I read somewhere that its ver 3.0 based. but I think
PPC 2005 has ver 5.0 in it. correct me if i'm wrong here.
And also does PPC has WiFi and bluetooth support in it.
Also I know how to add drivers in win ce, but i have no idea how to add
drivers into PPC. is it like, i copy my dll and add registry settings and
reset it and the next time it will load my driver too.
and it may sound silly question but i have never even seen PPC, so how do we
check debug output on ppc. like in win ce we connect a serial cable, open
hyperterminal and everything is in front of us. do we have debug versions in
PPC too where we can have so many of serial/debug msgs from where we find the
ones relevent.
Are there such capabilities present in PPC.
And the last one,
we have to print doc and excel files too. Is there some SDK available which
can help us do that. Or does microsoft provides the formats of these files so
that we can write an interpreter by ourself.
Again, please suggest.
These groups are really helpful.
thanks a lot guys.

--
GD Shukla


"r_z_aret@pen_fact.com" wrote:

> On Tue, 11 Apr 2006 21:59:01 -0700, gd.shukla <gd.shukla@hotmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> >first of all thanks for your answers.
> >I did look at PrintCE and it does appear to be a better choice rather than
> >doing what has already been done.
>
> I provide support, mainly for one particular customer. It is
> appropriately boring, meaning once I got my code to work, the utility
> worked flawlessly.
>
> >And we are going to suggest the customer about that but the point is what if
> >the customer says he doesn't want to go with a third party solution and wants
> >us to develop the similar thing. With that perspective, I was trying to lok
> >deeper into the printing mechanism. Like how to take the data and send it to
> >printer.
>
> I'll add to the list of advantages to going with PrinterCE: Field
> Software specializes in printer support. That means they have seen and
> dealt with a lot of bugs you won't see for years. And they support
> many printers over several types of connections (serial, network, IR,
> ....).
>
> >
> >And steve, as you answered in my other post, there is a lot of printing
> >support on top of printer driver. Is this task really that much cumbersome.
> >
> >Could anyone of you please try to explain to me like how to get the data
> >from a document which might contain text and images, create its bitmap and
> >send those rgb values to printer.
> >The main question is how to create a bitmap of the text and image combined.
> >Please suggest.
>
> The utilities from Field Software provide a Device Context, very my
> like the printer support in "big" Windows. Printing a bitmap is done
> by drawing it on the right Device Context.
>
> -----------------------------------------
> To reply to me, remove the underscores (_) from my email address (and please indicate which newsgroup and message).
>
> Robert E. Zaret, eMVP
> PenFact, Inc.
> 20 Park Plaza, Suite 478
> Boston, MA 02116
> www.penfact.com
>

Paul
Thu Apr 13 12:27:36 CDT 2006

Various versions of PPC are based on various versions of Windows CE. When MS
is coming out with a new version of Windows Mobile, they use the latest
version of Windows CE which is available to them, often a version which is
ahead of what is commercially available to Windows CE OEMs.

Pocket PCs do typically have WiFi and Bluetooth support, at least the
Windows Mobile 5 versions do. Obviously, any earlier version that has
internal WiFi or Bluetooth has some support in it, too, or you wouldn't be
able to use it.

Yes, you may need to copy files to the Windows folder, adjust the registry
and do a soft reboot. If you do a hard reboot, the registry is gone, so you
wouldn't want to do that ;-) If you're just adding, say, a USB device
driver, you probably don't need a reboot, since the driver won't be loaded
until the device is attached.

You can't get any serial debug output from a Pocket PC in any documented
way. In fact, since they are running RETAIL builds of the OS, there may not
even be any debug messages floating around.

Can't help you with the Office questions...

Paul T.


"gd.shukla" <gd.shukla@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:98999A6F-9511-45D0-8B11-D07203E0688A@microsoft.com...
> thanks a lot for your very useful replies.
> But there is one small obstacle, PrintCE supports some printers and the
> printer that we are going to use is not in the list and we are not sure,
> if
> its a standard printer or has some catch with its interface. So we might
> have
> to build the whole thing by ourselves. alas .............
>
> there is something else I want to know. What is the Windows Ce version
> pocket pc based upon. I read somewhere that its ver 3.0 based. but I think
> PPC 2005 has ver 5.0 in it. correct me if i'm wrong here.
> And also does PPC has WiFi and bluetooth support in it.
> Also I know how to add drivers in win ce, but i have no idea how to add
> drivers into PPC. is it like, i copy my dll and add registry settings and
> reset it and the next time it will load my driver too.
> and it may sound silly question but i have never even seen PPC, so how do
> we
> check debug output on ppc. like in win ce we connect a serial cable, open
> hyperterminal and everything is in front of us. do we have debug versions
> in
> PPC too where we can have so many of serial/debug msgs from where we find
> the
> ones relevent.
> Are there such capabilities present in PPC.
> And the last one,
> we have to print doc and excel files too. Is there some SDK available
> which
> can help us do that. Or does microsoft provides the formats of these files
> so
> that we can write an interpreter by ourself.
> Again, please suggest.
> These groups are really helpful.
> thanks a lot guys.
>
> --
> GD Shukla
>
>
> "r_z_aret@pen_fact.com" wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 11 Apr 2006 21:59:01 -0700, gd.shukla <gd.shukla@hotmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> >first of all thanks for your answers.
>> >I did look at PrintCE and it does appear to be a better choice rather
>> >than
>> >doing what has already been done.
>>
>> I provide support, mainly for one particular customer. It is
>> appropriately boring, meaning once I got my code to work, the utility
>> worked flawlessly.
>>
>> >And we are going to suggest the customer about that but the point is
>> >what if
>> >the customer says he doesn't want to go with a third party solution and
>> >wants
>> >us to develop the similar thing. With that perspective, I was trying to
>> >lok
>> >deeper into the printing mechanism. Like how to take the data and send
>> >it to
>> >printer.
>>
>> I'll add to the list of advantages to going with PrinterCE: Field
>> Software specializes in printer support. That means they have seen and
>> dealt with a lot of bugs you won't see for years. And they support
>> many printers over several types of connections (serial, network, IR,
>> ....).
>>
>> >
>> >And steve, as you answered in my other post, there is a lot of printing
>> >support on top of printer driver. Is this task really that much
>> >cumbersome.
>> >
>> >Could anyone of you please try to explain to me like how to get the data
>> >from a document which might contain text and images, create its bitmap
>> >and
>> >send those rgb values to printer.
>> >The main question is how to create a bitmap of the text and image
>> >combined.
>> >Please suggest.
>>
>> The utilities from Field Software provide a Device Context, very my
>> like the printer support in "big" Windows. Printing a bitmap is done
>> by drawing it on the right Device Context.
>>
>> -----------------------------------------
>> To reply to me, remove the underscores (_) from my email address (and
>> please indicate which newsgroup and message).
>>
>> Robert E. Zaret, eMVP
>> PenFact, Inc.
>> 20 Park Plaza, Suite 478
>> Boston, MA 02116
>> www.penfact.com
>>

Hans
Sat Apr 15 03:22:20 CDT 2006

Printing seems to create a lot of problems, regarding all the discussions. I
don't understand why the hardware boys don't deliver standard drivers on the
PDA's.

I need to print pdf files from our pocket pc software. We have pdf files
created (on the fly) and would to print them via Blue tooth printer.

Anyone suggestions for a good sdk tool?

Thanks hans




"gd.shukla" <gd.shukla@hotmail.com> schreef in bericht
news:AA3902A3-5518-480B-901A-B1838DF1A05E@microsoft.com...
> Hi,
> Here's another printing related query.
> I want to know what happens when we say print a file, in terms of GDI and
> DC
> etc.
> I mean how the OS uses the GDI to get data on the surface, creates another
> surface where it puts the data to be printed and then finally send it to
> printer.
> Actually in pocket PC there is no printing support. So if we have to do
> the
> printing job, what are the functionalities required that need to be taken
> care of.
> Please suggest.
>
> --
> GD Shukla

Mai
Sat Apr 15 03:56:39 CDT 2006

On Sat, 15 Apr 2006 10:22:20 +0200, "Hans" <info@tct.nl> wrote:

>Printing seems to create a lot of problems, regarding all the discussions. I
>don't understand why the hardware boys don't deliver standard drivers on the
>PDA's.

May be you want to read "how printing works" from PB help.
open "wceprint.chm" from PB help or from your OEM's SDK

short:
Printing in CE works completely different.The output is rasterized /
rendered by GWES.exe/display driver. The "printer driver" only has the
task to transfer used (blacked) rectangles to the printer. No fonts,
no char sets here.
or in other words: everything that can be painted on the screen can be
printed on paper.