C# – Programmatically set filename and path in Microsoft Print to PDF printer

cnetpdfprintingwindows

I have a C# .net program that creates various documents. These documents should be stored in different locations and with different, clearly defined names.

To do so, I use the System.Drawing.Printing.PrintDocument class.
I select the Microsoft Print to PDF as printer with this statement:

PrintDocument.PrinterSettings.PrinterName = "Microsoft Print to PDF";

While doing so I'm able to print my document in a pdf file. The user gets a file select dialog. He can then specify in this dialog box the name of the pdf file and where to store it.

As the amount of files are large and it is annoying and error-prone to find always the correct path and name, I would like to set the correct path and filename in this dialog box programmatically.

I have already tested these attributes:

PrintDocument.PrinterSettings.PrintFileName PrintDocument.DocumentName

Writing the required path and filename to these attributes didn't help.
Does anybody know, how to set the default values for path and filename for the Microsoft Print to PDF printer in C#?

Note: My environment :
Windows 10,
Visual Studio 2010,
.net framework 4.5

Best Answer

As noted in other answers, you can force PrinterSettings.PrintToFile = true, and set the PrinterSettings.PrintFileName, but then your user doesn't get the save as popup. My solution is to go ahead and show the Save As dialog myself, populating that with my "suggested" filename [in my case, a text file (.txt) which I change to .pdf], then set the PrintFileName to the result.

DialogResult userResp = printDialog.ShowDialog();
if (userResp == DialogResult.OK)
{
    if (printDialog.PrinterSettings.PrinterName == "Microsoft Print to PDF")
    {   // force a reasonable filename
        string basename = Path.GetFileNameWithoutExtension(myFileName);
        string directory = Path.GetDirectoryName(myFileName);
        prtDoc.PrinterSettings.PrintToFile = true;
        // confirm the user wants to use that name
        SaveFileDialog pdfSaveDialog = new SaveFileDialog();
        pdfSaveDialog.InitialDirectory = directory;
        pdfSaveDialog.FileName = basename + ".pdf";
        pdfSaveDialog.Filter = "PDF File|*.pdf";
        userResp = pdfSaveDialog.ShowDialog();
        if (userResp != DialogResult.Cancel)
            prtDoc.PrinterSettings.PrintFileName = pdfSaveDialog.FileName;
    }

    if (userResp != DialogResult.Cancel)  // in case they canceled the save as dialog
    {
        prtDoc.Print();
    }
}

Related Solutions

C# – How to create an Excel (.XLS and .XLSX) file in C# without installing Microsoft Office

You can use a library called ExcelLibrary. It's a free, open source library posted on Google Code:

ExcelLibrary

This looks to be a port of the PHP ExcelWriter that you mentioned above. It will not write to the new .xlsx format yet, but they are working on adding that functionality in.

It's very simple, small and easy to use. Plus it has a DataSetHelper that lets you use DataSets and DataTables to easily work with Excel data.

ExcelLibrary seems to still only work for the older Excel format (.xls files), but may be adding support in the future for newer 2007/2010 formats.

You can also use EPPlus, which works only for Excel 2007/2010 format files (.xlsx files). There's also NPOI which works with both.

There are a few known bugs with each library as noted in the comments. In all, EPPlus seems to be the best choice as time goes on. It seems to be more actively updated and documented as well.

Also, as noted by @АртёмЦарионов below, EPPlus has support for Pivot Tables and ExcelLibrary may have some support (Pivot table issue in ExcelLibrary)

Here are a couple links for quick reference:
ExcelLibrary - GNU Lesser GPL
EPPlus - GNU (LGPL) - No longer maintained
EPPlus 5 - Polyform Noncommercial - Starting May 2020
NPOI - Apache License

Here some example code for ExcelLibrary:

Here is an example taking data from a database and creating a workbook from it. Note that the ExcelLibrary code is the single line at the bottom:

//Create the data set and table
DataSet ds = new DataSet("New_DataSet");
DataTable dt = new DataTable("New_DataTable");

//Set the locale for each
ds.Locale = System.Threading.Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture;
dt.Locale = System.Threading.Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture;

//Open a DB connection (in this example with OleDB)
OleDbConnection con = new OleDbConnection(dbConnectionString);
con.Open();

//Create a query and fill the data table with the data from the DB
string sql = "SELECT Whatever FROM MyDBTable;";
OleDbCommand cmd = new OleDbCommand(sql, con);
OleDbDataAdapter adptr = new OleDbDataAdapter();

adptr.SelectCommand = cmd;
adptr.Fill(dt);
con.Close();

//Add the table to the data set
ds.Tables.Add(dt);

//Here's the easy part. Create the Excel worksheet from the data set
ExcelLibrary.DataSetHelper.CreateWorkbook("MyExcelFile.xls", ds);

Creating the Excel file is as easy as that. You can also manually create Excel files, but the above functionality is what really impressed me.

C# – Better way to check if a Path is a File or a Directory

From How to tell if path is file or directory:

// get the file attributes for file or directory
FileAttributes attr = File.GetAttributes(@"c:\Temp");

//detect whether its a directory or file
if ((attr & FileAttributes.Directory) == FileAttributes.Directory)
    MessageBox.Show("Its a directory");
else
    MessageBox.Show("Its a file");

Update for .NET 4.0+

Per the comments below, if you are on .NET 4.0 or later (and maximum performance is not critical) you can write the code in a cleaner way:

// get the file attributes for file or directory
FileAttributes attr = File.GetAttributes(@"c:\Temp");

if (attr.HasFlag(FileAttributes.Directory))
    MessageBox.Show("Its a directory");
else
    MessageBox.Show("Its a file");

Best Answer

Related Solutions

C# – How to create an Excel (.XLS and .XLSX) file in C# without installing Microsoft Office

C# – Better way to check if a Path is a File or a Directory

Update for .NET 4.0+

Related Topic