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As part of a printing class, I want to be able to print long strings over multiple pages, but I don't know how to calculate the height of the entire string, which I will determine by first counting the number of lines in my string. I know I can count the number of line breaks, but I am also using word-wrap, so line breaks will be added whenever a line goes on past the width of the page. So I suppose I could count the number of line breaks, and figure out the width of each line, and figure out if there is a need for a word-wrap line break for each line, but this seems like an overly complicated problem for something I imagine can be done more simply. 

e.Graphics.DrawString(multiPageString, new Font("Courier New", 12), Brushes.Black, new RectangleF(0, 0, 810, pageHeight));

If you have any advice, please let me know thanks!

sooprise
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    Still struggling printing! Serious use another tool! Could you provide some more information on your environment. Etc windows forms .NET version. – Jonathan Feb 16 '11 at 17:13
  • Windows XP, Looks like I have .NET 3.5 installed, and this is just a straight up code class that can be used in WinForms or wherever. I'm willing to use a different printing solution, but I'm super close to accomplishing everything I need for this class (although it has been a super pain in the butt) – sooprise Feb 16 '11 at 17:24
  • Yeah thats what I kept saying on my current project, then it turns out its never enough. Business users always want more. Plus you are left with the solution to maintain. If its nearly finished might be worthwhile completing, but tell business any additional changes requires new solution! – Jonathan Feb 16 '11 at 17:35
  • Can you recommend a package I can use for this? – sooprise Feb 16 '11 at 17:39

6 Answers6

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int iMaxWidth = 240; // Maximum width, in pixels
string sText = @"blah-blah-blah";
Font objFont = new Font("Times New Roman", 13, System.Drawing.FontStyle.Italic, System.Drawing.GraphicsUnit.Point);
StringFormat sfFmt = new StringFormat(StringFormatFlags.LineLimit);
Graphics g = Graphics.FromImage(new Bitmap(1, 1));
int iHeight = (int)g.MeasureString(sText, objFont, iMaxWidth, sfFmt).Height;
int iOneLineHeight = (int)g.MeasureString("Z", objFont, iMaxWidth, sfFmt).Height;
int iNumLines = (int)(iHeight/iOneLineHeight);
Alexander
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    I know! .... its not that hard to grasp.... really. What it does, it measures the height of a single line text and then divides the height of the given string by that height -> the result is a line count, just as asked for. – Till Sep 18 '13 at 11:06
  • This is the only answer that explicitly tells you how many lines of text a string will take (including wrapping and newlines) when displayed with a the specified font and a specified width. – Tom West Oct 18 '13 at 15:32
2

As @Alexander suggested, one good and pretty simple approach would be just to test it without drawing. let the Graphics do the test for you.

Suppose you have maximum line length of wrapWidth in pixel, and the string you want to check is multiPageString, then you may use this function:

private int GetNumOfLines(string multiPageString, int wrapWidth, Font fnt)
{
    StringFormat sfFmt = new StringFormat(StringFormatFlags.LineLimit);
    using(Graphics g = Graphics.FromImage(new Bitmap(1, 1)))
    {
        int iHeight = (int)g.MeasureString(multiPageString, fnt, wrapWidth, sfFmt).Height;
        int iOneLineHeight = (int)g.MeasureString("Z", fnt, wrapWidth, sfFmt).Height;
        return (int)(iHeight/iOneLineHeight);
    }
}

(This function is derived from @Alexander answer.)

Community
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2i3r
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2

This can be edited, but you can probably use this as starting location?

const int PAGE_MAX_CHARS_PER_LINE = 30;
var message = "this is a really long line and it will make your eyes pop out but I don't know how to present a long line differently.  So you will have to stick with\r\nit.   I think the above line should be long enough\r\n\r\n I would love to see how this turns out.";
var lines = message.Split(new string [] {"\r\n"}, StringSplitOptions.None);
var linesCount = lines.Length;

var longLines = lines.Where(i=>i.Length > PAGE_MAX_CHARS_PER_LINE);
foreach(var l in longLines)
{
  int numberOfLines = (int)Math.Ceiling((double)l.Length / PAGE_MAX_CHARS_PER_LINE); /// Will need to embed graphics measurement mechanism here?
  linesCount += numberOfLines - 1;
}
Holystream
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1

I agree with @David Heffernan provide a really bog standard implementation. Its way to complicated for the value they are going to achieve, or go with something that will produce 100% reliable printing results etc Reporting Services. I feel your pain, printing is painstaking!

vasanth
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Jonathan
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1

If you want to measure size of the string use method Graphics.MeasureString(string, Font)

graphics.MeasureString("some string", new Font("Arial", 10))
Oleg Rudckivsky
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  • How can I make this account for line breaks caused by word-wrap? – sooprise Feb 16 '11 at 17:22
  • Oh, I thought you need to know number of lines to calculate the size of the drawn text. But you still can use Graphics.MeasureString to calculate height of whole text and than divide it by single line's height. – Oleg Rudckivsky Feb 16 '11 at 17:29
0

Why don't you just stuff it into a rich text control and print that? No more than 10-15 lines of code should get it done.

David Heffernan
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  • Would you still have to set the dimensions of the RichTextBox control so it prints properly? Also, were you thinking RichTextBox.DrawToBitmap to get it to print (is there a different method?) – sooprise Feb 16 '11 at 17:19
  • Quick web search led me to this on MSDN: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa970917.aspx I'm sure there are plenty of other pages with similar code – David Heffernan Feb 16 '11 at 17:24