The PrintDocument class provides printing capabilities from a Silverlight application. To open a print dialog box call the Print method.

In Silverlight 5 the printing defaults to vector printing. In Silverlight 4, the printing defaults to bitmap printing. You can specify bitmap printing in Silverlight 5 by using the PrintBitmap method.

To specify the content to print, handle the PrintPage event. Inside the method that handles this even you specify the content to print. For either vector or bitmap printing you set the PrintPageEventArgs..::.PageVisual property to the element you want to print. If you are printing items that are not in the visual tree, you should populate the UIElement with all of its content first and then assign it as the PageVisual. This will cause the layout to recalculate for printing purposes.

For bitmap printing, you can print the entire Silverlight control by setting the PrintPageEventArgs..::.PageVisual property to the layout root of the Silverlight content. Alternatively, you can print a portion of the Silverlight control by setting PrintPageEventArgs..::.PageVisual that contains the items you want to print to the named UIElement that you want to print.

After the PrintPage event occurs, the specified PrintPageEventArgs..::.PageVisual will be sent to the printer to be printed. If the content is too large to fit in the PrintableArea, it will be clipped. If the HasMorePages property is true, the PrintPage event occurs multiple times until HasMorePages is false.

Use the BeginPrint event to perform special handling or set up before printing begins. Use the EndPrint event for clean up or other operations after printing is complete or to detect errors that occurred during the printing process with the EndPrintEventArgs..::.Error property.

The following code example shows a button event handler that calls the Print method and an event handler for the PrintPage event. In this example, an Image control, which contains a map, is printed.

Partial Public Class MainPage
    Inherits UserControl
    Private pd As PrintDocument()

    Public Sub New()
        InitializeComponent()
        pd = New PrintDocument()

    End Sub

    Private Sub PrintButton_Click(ByVal sender As Object, _
            ByVal e As RoutedEventArgs)
        pd.Print("M yMap")
    End Sub

    Private Sub pd_PrintPage(ByVal sender As Object, _
            ByVal e As PrintPageEventArgs) Handles pd.PrintPage
        e.PageVisual = mapImage
    End Sub
End Class

public partial class MainPage : UserControl
{
    PrintDocument pd; 

    public MainPage()
    {
        InitializeComponent();
        pd = new PrintDocument();
        pd.PrintPage += new EventHandler<PrintPageEventArgs>(pd_PrintPage);

    }

    private void PrintButton_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
    {
      pd.Print("My Map");
    }

    void pd_PrintPage(object sender, PrintPageEventArgs e)
    {
        e.PageVisual = mapImage;
    }
}

<StackPanel x:Name="LayoutRoot">
      <Button Margin="5" Width="200" Content="Click to print" x:Name="PrintButton" 
              Click="PrintButton_Click" />
      <Image Width="600"  Height="600" Source="RedmondMap.jpg" x:Name="mapImage"/>
  </StackPanel>

Silverlight

For a list of the operating systems and browsers that are supported by Silverlight, see Supported Operating Systems and Browsers.

Reference

Other Resources