using printer driver to send information to the clipboard or another application

Hello,

I would like to write a "printer driver" that prints data into the clipboard
or sends to data via interprocess communication to another application.

Can this be done? Can it be done with vb.net? How easy is it to design and
program? I am completely new to printer device programming, what resources
could i look up?

thank you,

Daniel

Orbian
Sun Nov 07 11:00:11 CST 2004

Daniel,

Get the Microsoft DDK from Microsoft. Its free. Look at the OEMUNI
project which is a plugin to the Unidrv printer driver. Oemuni is the
rendering plugin where you can capture the printed data in a function called
ImageProcessing. If you save the images to a folder you can then process
them anyway you want if you spawn a process and pass it the folder name.
That spawned process can then send the images to the clipboard or through an
IPC mechanism and can be written in whatever language you like. The print
drivers are C++ DLLs and use a build environment that is privided on the DDK
disk.

Bob

"Daniel Gross" <gross@fis.utoronto.ca> wrote in message
news:%23EXMKYGxEHA.3808@TK2MSFTNGP15.phx.gbl...
> Hello,
>
> I would like to write a "printer driver" that prints data into the
> clipboard or sends to data via interprocess communication to another
> application.
>
> Can this be done? Can it be done with vb.net? How easy is it to design and
> program? I am completely new to printer device programming, what resources
> could i look up?
>
> thank you,
>
> Daniel
>
>

Maxim
Sun Nov 07 15:07:32 CST 2004

> Can this be done? Can it be done with vb.net?

Forget .NET for system-level tasks.

What you need is a port monitor DLL. They are documented in the DDK. Then use
it with the PSCRIPT5.DLL and the generic PPD (I think that there are
open-source ones) - and you will have PostScript on the output. You can also
have a bitmap instead of PostScript.

--
Maxim Shatskih, Windows DDK MVP
StorageCraft Corporation
maxim@storagecraft.com
http://www.storagecraft.com