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Printing WPF controls without using PrintDialog isn't fully rendering on sizes larger than NorthAmericanLetter sized paper

I have run into a problem that seems to have little information on the web and has been giving me trouble the past two days. When I print to an 8.5 x 11" piece of paper, the output is correct on all printers. When I print to 11 x 17", the output is correct on all virtual (doPDF7, XPS Document Writer) printers. The output on an actual physical printer (Xerox WorkCentre 7535) only renders, from the top-left corner, 8.5 x 11" worth of my control onto a 11 x 17" piece of paper. My control is properly sized (dimension of the 11 x 17") it just doesn't get completely rendered.
I have a Print Preview control implemented where the user can select a printer (PrintQueue) and the settings (PrintCapabilities) for their selected printer. Changing these settings will show up during run time so the user knows exactly what they are printing.
When the user then wants to print their document, I prepare the selected PrintQueue by merging the ticket (their selections in the print preview) with the PrintQueue.CurrentJobSettings.CurrentPrintTicket:
public void Prepare(PrintTicket ticketToMerge)
{
// _printer is the PrintQueue
// I've also tried to merge with UserPrintTicket, DefaultPrintTicket, and created a PrintTicket using XPS Document Writer printer default print ticket
System.Printing.ValidationResult result = _printer.MergeAndValidatePrintTicket(_printer.CurrentJobSettings.CurrentPrintTicket, ticketToMerge);
_printer.CurrentJobSettings.CurrentPrintTicket = result.ValidatedPrintTicket;
_printer.Commit();
// _printer.Refresh(); // This doesn't help it seems
}
then I call to print my DocumentPaginator:
public void Print(DocumentPaginator paginator)
{
var writer = PrintQueue.CreateXpsDocumentWriter(_printer);
writer.Write(paginator, _printer.CurrentJobSettings.CurrentPrintTicket);
}
and the actual printer calls DocumentPaginator.GetPage:
public override DocumentPage GetPage(int pageNumber)
{
var view = new PrintingContent
{
// Create my control and make it the biggest size it can be without
// going into the margins
// Subtract the margins since they can't be printed in, these come from
// _printerCapabilities.PageImageableArea
Width = this.PageSize.Width - this.Margin.Left - this.Margin.Right,
Height = this.PageSize.Height - this.Margin.Top - this.Margin.Bottom,
// This might be a problem since the print preview control
// is also using "this" but haven't found any evidence to conclude this thought
DataContext = this
};
view.Measure(new Size(view.Width, view.Height));
view.Arrange(new Rect(new Point(), new Size(view.Width, view.Height)));
view.UpdateLayout();
var dg = UItilities.FindVisualChildren<DataGrid>(view).First();
// dg.ItemsSource = (File as ParameterCollectionShell).GetParametersByPage(pageNumber)
// This didn't work so I tried giving the datagrid a new instance of List - this might be causing problems?
var parameters = new List<ParameterViewModel>((File as ParameterCollectionShell).GetParametersByPage(pageNumber));
dg.ItemsSource = parameters;
// Doesn't seem to help
// view.Measure(new Size(view.Width, view.Height));
// view.Arrange(new Rect(new Point(), new Size(view.Width, view.Height)));
view.UpdateLayout();
//return new DocumentPage(view,
// this.PageSize,
// new Rect(new Point(), new Size(view.Width, view.Height)),
// new Rect(new Point(this.Margin.Left, this.Margin.Top),
// new Size(view.Width, view.Height)));
return new DocumentPage(view);
}
Of course I have debugged this and checked sizes to make sure they are what they are supposed to be. Everything works printing to an .xps document or .pdf; but why doesn't it work when being sent to a physical printer?
For what it's worth, there is a DataGrid in my control and I had trouble with *-size spacing columns in the past, but they are all fixed width so I'm not sure if its related or not.

It turns out that it must have been a printer driver issue. I re-installed the driver for the same printer and after doing so everything worked correctly.
I got in direct contact with Xerox's firmware team for the specific printer and they let me know that there was firmware updates for the printer and that it could be serviced to hopefully fix it. They couldn't pin point exactly what the issue is, but the issue is now in their bug system.
When in doubt, re-install a printers driver and try printing again when you're having rendering problems. I'm not sure what invokes this bad behavior but printing to any other printer worked correctly; that's how I narrowed it down to a driver issue.

retrieve the name of the printer with silverlight

I created a print soft with silverlight. I must verify on which printer my customer prints her document. But I don't find the way to access to the name of the printer after the customer have chose it.
I use this code to initialize the impression
printDoc = new PrintDocument();
printDoc.PrintPage += OnPrint;
printDoc.EndPrint += EndPrint;
printDoc.BeginPrint += BeginPrint;
printDoc.Print("Badge");
I just want cancel the print if the customer choose the bad printer. Is there a way for this? (I know the print functions in Silverlight are very light)

PrintDocument.Print() prints very slowly to network printer [duplicate]

I have a web application hosted on server 'A' (SA) and a web service for printing hosted on server 'B' (SB). SA creates and image that needs printing and sends it to SB. When doing this, printing is fairly slow, around fifteen seconds. However, if I log into SB using remote desktop as the user from the webconfig of the app hosted on SA, then it will print in less than two seconds. It seems as if SB is starting something up when I log into it that is making it print faster. Any idea what this could be and if there's a way that I could keep this printing fast even if I'm not logged in?
Edit: Size of the image being printed is about 20 KB.
Here's the code from of the service that is hosted on SB:
public void PrintImage(Stream printImage, string printServer, string printer)
{
string printerName = String.Format(#"\\{0}\{1}", printServer, printer);
Image image = Image.FromStream(printImage);
PrintDocument printDocument = new PrintDocument();
PrinterSettings settings = new PrinterSettings();
settings.PrinterName = printerName;
printDocument.PrinterSettings = settings;
printDocument.PrintPage += (s, e) =>
{
e.Graphics.DrawImage(image, 0, 0);
};
printDocument.Print();
}
Thanks for taking time to read through this :)

We found that if we created a printer mapping on SB, it would execute just as fast without a remote desktop connection.

Note that printing from a web app (or a service) is generally unsupported. see msdn and this SO post.

PrintDocument.Print is slow unless user is logged in to the printing computer

I have a web application hosted on server 'A' (SA) and a web service for printing hosted on server 'B' (SB). SA creates and image that needs printing and sends it to SB. When doing this, printing is fairly slow, around fifteen seconds. However, if I log into SB using remote desktop as the user from the webconfig of the app hosted on SA, then it will print in less than two seconds. It seems as if SB is starting something up when I log into it that is making it print faster. Any idea what this could be and if there's a way that I could keep this printing fast even if I'm not logged in?
Edit: Size of the image being printed is about 20 KB.
Here's the code from of the service that is hosted on SB:
public void PrintImage(Stream printImage, string printServer, string printer)
{
string printerName = String.Format(#"\\{0}\{1}", printServer, printer);
Image image = Image.FromStream(printImage);
PrintDocument printDocument = new PrintDocument();
PrinterSettings settings = new PrinterSettings();
settings.PrinterName = printerName;
printDocument.PrinterSettings = settings;
printDocument.PrintPage += (s, e) =>
{
e.Graphics.DrawImage(image, 0, 0);
};
printDocument.Print();
}
Thanks for taking time to read through this :)

We found that if we created a printer mapping on SB, it would execute just as fast without a remote desktop connection.

Note that printing from a web app (or a service) is generally unsupported. see msdn and this SO post.

POS Application Development - Receipt Printing

I've been building a POS application for a restaurant/bar. The design part is done and for the past month I've been coding it. Everything works fine except now I need to print. I have to print to a receipt printer connected to the computer running the software and later I'll try to print in a remote printer like a kitchen one.
I've searched for help in the matter only to find that the standard for printing in these types of printers is using POS for .NET. The thing is, this is now a bit outdated or at least it hasn't had any updates since a couple of years. There's a lot of questions being asked on how to use this library and most of the answers aren't quite easy to follow. So if anybody could give a step by step help on printing like a simple phrase ("Hello World") on a receipt printer i would be very grateful. I'm using visual studio 2012 running on a 64 bit windows 7 and i'm coding WPF in c#.

I know this is an old post, but for those still looking for a solution, I can tell you what I did.
After spending many hours messing with OPOS and POS for .Net, I ended up just abandoning those and just using the built-in System.Drawing.Printing libraries. The OPOS and POS for .Net ended up being a pain to get working and ultimately didn't work as well as the built-in libraries.
I'm using an Epson TM-T20II receipt printer.
Here's some code that worked well for me.
public static void PrintReceiptForTransaction()
{
PrintDocument recordDoc = new PrintDocument();
recordDoc.DocumentName = "Customer Receipt";
recordDoc.PrintPage += new PrintPageEventHandler(ReceiptPrinter.PrintReceiptPage); // function below
recordDoc.PrintController = new StandardPrintController(); // hides status dialog popup
// Comment if debugging
PrinterSettings ps = new PrinterSettings();
ps.PrinterName = "EPSON TM-T20II Receipt";
recordDoc.PrinterSettings = ps;
recordDoc.Print();
// --------------------------------------
// Uncomment if debugging - shows dialog instead
//PrintPreviewDialog printPrvDlg = new PrintPreviewDialog();
//printPrvDlg.Document = recordDoc;
//printPrvDlg.Width = 1200;
//printPrvDlg.Height = 800;
//printPrvDlg.ShowDialog();
// --------------------------------------
recordDoc.Dispose();
}
private static void PrintReceiptPage(object sender, PrintPageEventArgs e)
{
float x = 10;
float y = 5;
float width = 270.0F; // max width I found through trial and error
float height = 0F;
Font drawFontArial12Bold = new Font("Arial", 12, FontStyle.Bold);
Font drawFontArial10Regular = new Font("Arial", 10, FontStyle.Regular);
SolidBrush drawBrush = new SolidBrush(Color.Black);
// Set format of string.
StringFormat drawFormatCenter = new StringFormat();
drawFormatCenter.Alignment = StringAlignment.Center;
StringFormat drawFormatLeft = new StringFormat();
drawFormatLeft.Alignment = StringAlignment.Near;
StringFormat drawFormatRight = new StringFormat();
drawFormatRight.Alignment = StringAlignment.Far;
// Draw string to screen.
string text = "Company Name";
e.Graphics.DrawString(text, drawFontArial12Bold, drawBrush, new RectangleF(x, y, width, height), drawFormatCenter);
y += e.Graphics.MeasureString(text, drawFontArial12Bold).Height;
text = "Address";
e.Graphics.DrawString(text, drawFontArial10Regular, drawBrush, new RectangleF(x, y, width, height), drawFormatCenter);
y += e.Graphics.MeasureString(text, drawFontArial10Regular).Height;
// ... and so on
}
Hopefully it helps someone skip all the messing around with custom drivers. :)

POS for .NET is probably the way to go.
Most receipt printer manufacturers will provide an OPOS service object.
And as this MSDN article states, POS for .NET is compatible with OPOS v1.8 service objects.
OPOS / UPOS (on which POS for .NET is based) is IMHO a poorly-designed API (designed by device manufacturers rather than application developers), but it's the best you have today.
I don't have any specific samples but the basics are the same as OPOS - you need to Open, Claim, Enable a device, then you can call its methods (such as Print). You might try looking at an OPOS sample, for example this PosPrinter1 sample, which will probably be very similar to POS for .NET.
This blog has some information about setting up POS for .NET that might be helpful.
UPDATE
Here's a VB Hello World for an OPOS printer. You first need to create a printer and add it to the registry with the required Logical Device Name = LDN. I believe the Epson ADK includes a utility to add a printer in the registry. This utility can also perform a health check on the printer to check it is installed correctly. Once you've done this, it should be easy enough to adapt the code below to POS for .NET
OPOSPOSPrinter.Open "MyPrinter" ' LDN of your printer
OPOSPOSPrinter.Claim 500 ' Timeout
OPOSPOSPrinter.DeviceEnabled = True
'- Print
OPOSPOSPrinter.PrintNormal 2, "Hello world"
'- Close the printer
If OPOSPOSPrinter.Claimed then
OPOSPOSPrinter.Release
End If
OPOSPOSPrinter.Close

.NET Printing
Printing under .NET isn't too difficult. Take a look here and on msdn.
Printing to a POS / receipt printer will be the same as printing to any other printer, assuming it is a Windows printer, network or otherwise. If you are using a serial printer, things may be a little more difficult because you will more then likely need to use manufacturer specific API's, fortunately though most good POS printers these days are fully supported by the OS.
First, you will need to add a reference to System.Printing dll to your project.
Then printing is as simple as
private void PrintText(string text)
{
var printDlg = new PrintDialog();
var doc = new FlowDocument(new Paragraph(new Run(text)));
doc.PagePadding = new Thickness(10);
printDlg.PrintDocument((doc as IDocumentPaginatorSource).DocumentPaginator, "Print Caption");
}
To use..
PrintText("Hello World");
You can also leverage the PrintDialog.PrintVisual and define your document using xaml template.
The print settings can be set using the PrintDialog properties.
Getting the printer you want to print to
private PrintQueue FindPrinter(string printerName)
{
var printers = new PrintServer().GetPrintQueues();
foreach (var printer in printers)
{
if (printer.FullName == printerName)
{
return printer;
}
}
return LocalPrintServer.GetDefaultPrintQueue();
}
A few things to keep in mind though when printing to a receipt printer, you will need to take into account formatting. More specifically you will need to consider the width of your page and how many characters you can fit on each line; this was a lot of trial and error for me, especially with different font sizes.
In most cases you don't really need to worry about paging, the printer will cut the paper automatically when it has completed your document.

If you want to print at the full speed of the printer, you will probably need to use printer-specific escape codes, and generate the "raw" output.
Have a look at Michael Buen's answer to this SO question, especially the UPDATE bit.