Member Avatar for mooseguy

I'm trying to write a small text editor in wxWidgets, using wxDev-Cpp. So far, all is well. However, for the life of me I can't work out how to print (As in, onto paper). As far as I can deduce, I need to use the wxPrinter class. Browsing the wxWidgets manual, though, proved a fruitless experience, as it might as well be written in chinese! Can anyone give me a simple way of printing the contents of an edit control?

Ben Ward

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Quick practical answer for : treat printing like any other device drawing in wxWidgets — subclass wxPrintout, pull the text from your wxTextCtrl, word-wrap it against the printer DC, compute lines-per-page from the DC metrics, and then draw the correct slice of lines inside OnPrintPage. Below is a minimal pattern that shows the essential pieces (word-wrap, pagination, DrawText). It deliberately keeps layout simple so it’s easy to adapt to your editor.

class TextPrintout : public wxPrintout {
public:
  TextPrintout(const wxString& title, const wxString& text)
    : wxPrintout(title), m_text(text), m_prepared(false) {}

  bool OnPrintPage(int pageNum) override {
    wxDC *dc = GetDC(); if (!dc) return false;
    if (!m_prepared) { prepare(dc); m_prepared = true; }
    if (pageNum < 1 || pageNum > m_pageCount) return false;

    int left = 50, top = 50;
    int lh = dc->GetCharHeight();
    int start = (pageNum - 1) * m_linesPerPage;
    int end = std::min(start + m_linesPerPage, (int)m_lines.size());
    for (int i = start; i < end; ++i)
      dc->DrawText(m_lines[i], left, top + (i - start) * lh);
    return true;
  }

  bool HasPage(int pageNum) override { return pageNum >= 1 && pageNum <= m_pageCount; }
  void GetPageInfo(int *minPage, int *maxPage, int *selFrom, int *selTo) override {
    *minPage = 1; *maxPage = std::max(1, m_pageCount); *selFrom = 1; *selTo = *maxPage;
  }

private:
  wxString m_text; std::vector<wxString> m_lines; bool m_prepared;
  int m_linesPerPage=0, m_pageCount=0;

  void prepare(wxDC *dc) {
    int pageW = dc->GetSize().x - 100;
    wxStringTokenizer para(m_text, "\n");
    while (para.HasMoreTokens()) {
      wxString p = para.GetNextToken();
      wxString cur;
      wxStringTokenizer words(p, " ");
      while (words.HasMoreTokens()) {
        wxString w = words.GetNextToken();
        wxString trial = cur.IsEmpty() ? w : cur + " " + w;
        int tw, th; dc->GetTextExtent(trial, &tw, &th);
        if (tw <= pageW) cur = trial; else { if (!cur.IsEmpty()) m_lines.push_back(cur); cur = w; }
      }
      if (!cur.IsEmpty()) m_lines.push_back(cur);
      else if (p.IsEmpty()) m_lines.push_back(wxEmptyString);
    }
    int usableH = dc->GetSize().y - 100;
    m_linesPerPage = std::max(1, usableH / dc->GetCharHeight());
    m_pageCount = (m_lines.size() + m_linesPerPage - 1) / m_linesPerPage;
  }
};

To start printing: create a TextPrintout with myTextCtrl->GetValue() and call wxPrinter::Print(parent, printout, true) (or use wxPrintPreview for preview). Keep in mind printer DC metrics (DPI/fonts) differ from the screen — measuring is done from the real DC in OnPrintPage.

For and others seeing linker errors like -lwxmsw28: that means your project is asking for a wxWidgets library that the linker cannot find. Ensure the wxWidgets build you have matches your compiler/bitness and add the correct lib folder to the linker path (or rebuild wxWidgets for your toolchain). wxDev-C++ is old; using a modern MinGW-w64 toolchain, Code::Blocks, MSYS2, or Visual Studio (with matching wxWidgets build) usually avoids those mismatches. Also consider the wxWidgets samples that ship with the library — they show real wxPrintout implementations you can adapt.

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Member Avatar for steventaal

I'm trying to write a small text editor in wxWidgets, using wxDev-Cpp. So far, all is well. However, for the life of me I can't work out how to print (As in, onto paper). As far as I can deduce, I need to use the wxPrinter class. Browsing the wxWidgets manual, though, proved a fruitless experience, as it might as well be written in chinese! Can anyone give me a simple way of printing the contents of an edit control?

Ben Ward

When I use wxDevC++, I get a 'can't find -lwxmsw28' error... How did you get it to work?

Member Avatar for Stefano Mtangoo

When I use wxDevC++, I get a 'can't find -lwxmsw28' error... How did you get it to work?

Save yourself some pains and download codelite

Member Avatar for allq

Save yourself some pains and download codelite

Has the codelite visual designer for wxWidgets like wxDevC++ ?

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