Print Drawings From VB App

[maccrystal]

What is the simplist method to print a single or group of autocad drawings from within a VB application. The application can read an item file that contains the drawing name. The user would like to select the group of items and print the respective drawing sheets.

 

[borgunit]

The word simple is relative. You would need to browse and build a list for processing the files. Then process them one by one and set layout parameters as you opened them up. I have built an app for this but it is specialized and does a lot of checking of titleblocks and papersize info. Have you tried the Batch Plotting built into AutoCAD?

 

[maccrystal]

Yes...Simple is relative. The original thought was to allow the user to print the Autocad drawing when they release the shop paper as part of the release process. I would like to pass the drawing file name to the Express Viewer (API) so the file would just print without loading into view mode. So far no luck. Any Ideas?

 

[borgunit]

The viewer has very little control over printing and relies on the printers windows drivers. Are you just trying to give the user a crippled viewer so they can not edit drawings or just pass drawings along and print on a free viewer? If you are wanting to just give them viewing and printing capabilities, you could create DWF files for them or save plt files that they could dump to a printer when they needed prints. We maintain TIF files that anyone can print and pass on. To get more control on AutoCAD dwg printing, you may need to go to Volo View (not express) or some other view/printing software.

 

[maccrystal]

First object is to "dump" the drawing to a printer or view the drawing. 90% of the time would be to print the drawing, with a pick list and routing operations ( three documents). The idea of piping *.PLT file to a printer port is intresting. If it is possible to use Volo View to print the drawing using ShellExec, without engaging the view, that would be ideal.

 

[borgunit]

You can copy/move from the shell, but it depends on the printer, its drivers, and the OS. We have one printer that has an app that polls a folder for files and then prints them. Some printers can check their spool directory for files. It depends on your setup.