HOWTO: How to Do Away with the Print Dialog Box in MFC Printing

MORE INFORMATION

CView::OnPreparePrinting is the first virtual function called during the print process. It is also called during print preview. AppWizard provides an implementation of OnPreparePrinting that calls CView::DoPreparePrinting. DoPreparePrinting displays the print dialog box for actual printing but not for print preview.

Therefore, in OnPreparePrinting, if CPrintInfo::m_bPreview is FALSE (an actual print job), set it to TRUE before calling DoPreparePrinting(). This makes DoPreparePrinting believe that the current context is that of print preview so the print dialog box isn't shown. After DoPreparePrinting returns, reset the variable to FALSE to let the print job go on uninterrupted.

The following sample code prevents the Print dialog box from appearing without affecting the print process.

Sample Code

BOOL CMyView::OnPreparePrinting(CPrintInfo* pInfo)
{
      if ( pInfo->m_bPreview )        // normal print preview
            return DoPreparePrinting(pInfo);

// actual printing
      pInfo->m_bPreview = TRUE;
      BOOL bRetval = DoPreparePrinting( pInfo );
      pInfo->m_bPreview = FALSE;
      return bRetval;
}