Following on from last weeks article on using the API as an alternative to the bulky ActiveX control supplied with Visual Basic to display the ChooseColour Common Dialog box this article will explain how to display the Page Setup Common Dialog Box.

The ActiveX Control, which is provided with Visual Basic doesn’t support the Page Setup Common Dialog, but you may have noticed the dialog from programs like the WordPad program that is provided with Windows NT/95/98.

This dialog can be used to return the dimensions and options for a page as well as the name of the desired printer. This dialog makes an ideal solution when developing applications word processors, but can be also used for any applications that includes a print option.

Calling the dialog box is not a terribly hard task, but returning information on the printer, orientation and paper size require much more demanding programming techniques such as manipulating memory objects.

Before leaning the more advanced techniques, you need to learn how to call and display the Page Setup Common Dialog box using more basic techniques.