Expected and actual printing results do not match

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C++

printing

WinAPI

INTRODUCTION AND RELEVANT INFORMATION:

I am trying to bypass another problem in my application by trying to do printing/print preview on my own.

I am trying to create a table that would look like in this picture[^].

I am using C++ and WinAPI, on WindowsXP SP3. I work in MS Visual Studio 2008.

I do not have a printer, so I am testing the results by printing to MS OneNote and XPS file.

PROBLEM:

Text is obtained from database and is of variable length. Since it might not fit into the original cell, I will need to expand the cell and fit the text appropriately, like in the above image.

SIDE EFFECT:

The result of my testing code gives inconsistent results regarding font size.

In OneNote the print result[^] seems fine, however, in XPS it looks different[^].

MY EFFORTS TO SOLVE THIS TASK:

I have checked MSDN documentation to get started. So far I am able to successfully draw text and lines on a printing surface.

I have used DrawTextEx [^] to perform word breaking ( by using flag DT_WORDBREAK ).

To obtain the size of the printing area I have used GetDeviceCaps[^], and to obtain printer device context I have used print property sheet[^].

QUESTIONS:

IMPORTANT REMARKS:

If the following questions are considered too broad please leave a comment and I will edit my post. I still believe that my mistakes are minor and can be explained in a single post.

1. Can you explain me how to adjust cells so the entire string can fit ?

2. Why is my font inconsistently drawn ?

As always, here are the instructions for creating SSCCE :

1) In Visual Studio, create default Win32 project.

2) in stdafx.h file comment out #define WIN32_LEAN_AND_MEAN so print property sheet can work properly.

3) In stdafx.h add the following, below #include <windows.h> line :

#include <windowsx.h>
#include <commctrl.h>

#pragma comment( linker, "/manifestdependency:\"type='win32' \
    name='Microsoft.Windows.Common-Controls' version='6.0.0.0' \
    processorArchitecture='*' publicKeyToken='6595b64144ccf1df' \
    language='*'\"")

4) Add the following function above window procedure :

// hWnd is the window that owns the property sheet.
HRESULT DisplayPrintPropertySheet(HWND hWnd)
{
    HRESULT hResult;
    PRINTDLGEX pdx = {0};
    LPPRINTPAGERANGE pPageRanges = NULL;

    // Allocate an array of PRINTPAGERANGE structures.
    pPageRanges = (LPPRINTPAGERANGE) GlobalAlloc(GPTR, 10 * sizeof(PRINTPAGERANGE));

    if (!pPageRanges)
        return E_OUTOFMEMORY;

    //  Initialize the PRINTDLGEX structure.
    pdx.lStructSize = sizeof(PRINTDLGEX);
    pdx.hwndOwner = hWnd;
    pdx.hDevMode = NULL;
    pdx.hDevNames = NULL;
    pdx.hDC = NULL;
    pdx.Flags = PD_RETURNDC;
    pdx.Flags2 = 0;
    pdx.ExclusionFlags = 0;
    pdx.nPageRanges = 0;
    pdx.nMaxPageRanges = 10;
    pdx.lpPageRanges = pPageRanges;
    pdx.nMinPage = 1;
    pdx.nMaxPage = 1000;
    pdx.nCopies = 1;
    pdx.hInstance = 0;
    pdx.lpPrintTemplateName = NULL;
    pdx.lpCallback = NULL;
    pdx.nPropertyPages = 0;
    pdx.lphPropertyPages = NULL;
    pdx.nStartPage = START_PAGE_GENERAL;
    pdx.dwResultAction = 0;

    //  Invoke the Print property sheet.

    hResult = PrintDlgEx(&pdx);

    if ( ( hResult == S_OK ) 
        && ( pdx.dwResultAction == PD_RESULT_PRINT ) )
    {

        // User clicked the Print button, 
        // so use the DC and other information returned in the 
        // PRINTDLGEX structure to print the document.

        DOCINFO diDocInfo = {0};
        diDocInfo.cbSize = sizeof( DOCINFO ); 
        diDocInfo.lpszDocName = L"Testing printing...";

        //******************** initialize testing font *****************//

        HFONT font, oldFont; 

        long lfHeight = -MulDiv( 14, GetDeviceCaps( pdx.hDC, LOGPIXELSY), 72 );

        font = CreateFont( lfHeight, 
            0, 0, 0, FW_BOLD, TRUE, FALSE, FALSE, 0, 0, 0, 
            0, 0, L"Microsoft Sans Serif" );

        oldFont = SelectFont( pdx.hDC, font );

        SetBkMode( pdx.hDC, TRANSPARENT );

        SetTextColor( pdx.hDC, RGB( 255, 0, 0 ) );

        //******************** end of initialization ******************//

        if( StartDoc( pdx.hDC, &diDocInfo ) > 0 )
        {
            if( StartPage( pdx.hDC ) > 0 )
            {
                // get paper dimensions
                int pageWidth, pageHeight;

                pageWidth = GetDeviceCaps( pdx.hDC, HORZRES );
                pageHeight = GetDeviceCaps( pdx.hDC, VERTRES );

                /************ draw a testing grid ***************/

                // draw vertical lines of the grid
                for( int i = 0; i < pageWidth; i += pageWidth / 4 )
                {
                     MoveToEx( pdx.hDC, i, 0, NULL );
                     LineTo( pdx.hDC, i, pageHeight );
                }

                // draw horizontal lines of the grid
                for( int j = 0; j < pageHeight; j += pageWidth / 10 )
                {
                     MoveToEx( pdx.hDC, 0, j, NULL );
                     LineTo( pdx.hDC, pageWidth, j );
                }

                /************************************************/

                // test rectangle for drawing the text
                RECT r;
                r.left = 0;
                r.top = 0;
                r.right = 550;
                r.bottom = 100;

                // fill rectangle with light gray brush
                // so we can see if text is properly drawn

                FillRect( pdx.hDC, &r, 
                    (HBRUSH)GetStockObject(LTGRAY_BRUSH) );

                // draw text in test rectangle 
                if( 0 == DrawTextEx( pdx.hDC, 
                     L"This is test string!", 
                     wcslen( L"This is test string!" ), 
                     &r, 
                     DT_CENTER | DT_WORDBREAK | DT_NOCLIP, NULL ) )
                     // for now pop a message box saying something went wrong
                     MessageBox( hWnd, L"DrawText failed!", L"Error", MB_OK );

                if( EndPage( pdx.hDC ) < 0 )
                     // for now pop a message box saying something went wrong
                     MessageBox( hWnd, L"EndDoc failed!", L"Error", MB_OK );
            }

            EndDoc( pdx.hDC );

            SelectFont( pdx.hDC, oldFont );
            DeleteFont( font );
        }
    }

    if (pdx.hDevMode != NULL) 
        GlobalFree(pdx.hDevMode); 

    if (pdx.hDevNames != NULL) 
        GlobalFree(pdx.hDevNames); 

    if (pdx.lpPageRanges != NULL)
        GlobalFree(pPageRanges);

    if (pdx.hDC != NULL) 
        DeleteDC(pdx.hDC);

    return hResult;
}

5) In WM_COMMAND handler, modify case IDM_ABOUT like this :

case IDM_ABOUT:   // test our printing here
    {
        if( FAILED( DisplayPrintPropertySheet( hWnd ) ) )
            MessageBox( hWnd, 
                L"Can't display print property sheet!", 
                L"Error", MB_OK );
    }
    //DialogBox(hInst, MAKEINTRESOURCE(IDD_ABOUTBOX), hWnd, About);
    break;

EDITED on June, 8th 2014 :

After the block if ( ( hResult == S_OK ) && ( pdx.dwResultAction == PD_RESULT_PRINT ) ) in the submitted SSCCE I have added the following for testing purposes :

int xDpi = GetDeviceCaps( pdx.hDC, LOGPIXELSX ),
    yDpi = GetDeviceCaps( pdx.hDC, LOGPIXELSY );

int mapMode = GetMapMode( pdx.hDC );

wchar_t displayDPI[50];
swprintf_s( displayDPI, 50, L" xDPI = %s , yDPI = %s", xDpi, yDpi );
MessageBox( hWnd, displayDPI, L"", MB_OK );

switch( mapMode )
{
case MM_ANISOTROPIC:
    MessageBox( hWnd, L"MM_ANISOTROPIC", L"", MB_OK );
    break;
case MM_HIENGLISH:
    MessageBox( hWnd, L"MM_HIENGLISH", L"", MB_OK );
    break;
case MM_HIMETRIC:
    MessageBox( hWnd, L"MM_HIMETRIC", L"", MB_OK );
    break;
case MM_ISOTROPIC:
    MessageBox( hWnd, L"MM_ISOTROPIC", L"", MB_OK );
    break;
case MM_LOENGLISH:
    MessageBox( hWnd, L"MM_LOENGLISH", L"", MB_OK );
    break;
case MM_LOMETRIC:
    MessageBox( hWnd, L"MM_LOMETRIC", L"", MB_OK );
    break;
case MM_TEXT:
    MessageBox( hWnd, L"MM_TEXT", L"", MB_OK );
    break;
case MM_TWIPS:
    MessageBox( hWnd, L"MM_TWIPS", L"", MB_OK );
    break;
default:
    MessageBeep(0);
    break;
}

In both cases mapping mode was the same ( MM_TEXT ) but for XPS I got xDPI = 600 , yDPI = 600 in the MessageBox while OneNote had xDPI = 300 , yDPI = 300.

This leads to the conclusion that with the same characteristics virtual printers will reproduce the same result. This also explains why OneNote printed properly into XPS when I tested it, and why my application failed. To solve this problem I need to find DPI aware solution...

EDITED on June, 9th 2014 :

Using GDI+ to create font and draw text I was able to get consistent results ( DPI is no longer a problem ). Still, if anyone knows how to achieve the same result using only GDI I would be still interested.

The only thing left for me is to draw a proper grid so the text can fit into cells properly.

EDITED on June, 10th 2014 :

After carefully reading through this MSDN link[^] I was able to alter the font creating code to achieve ( in my opinion ) stable results :

font = CreateFont( 
    // DPI aware, thanks to the below equation ( or so it seems... )
    lfHeight / ( GetDeviceCaps( pdx.hDC, LOGPIXELSY ) / 96 ), 
    0, 0, 0, FW_BOLD, TRUE, FALSE, FALSE, 0, 0, 0,      // remained the same
    0, 0, L"Microsoft Sans Serif" );                    // remained the same

Just to be safe, I will try to stick with GDI+ but will update this post with the testing results when GDI and the mentioned equation is used in case someone else stumbles upon the same problem. I just hope it will save that persons time...