Messaging Interface
Black Ice Printer Driver API

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All of the Black Ice Printer Drivers include a messaging interface. The printer drivers communicate with applications through this interface by sending printer messages at different stages of the printing process. The applications capture the messages sent by the printer driver and process them.

The driver communicates with an application three different ways.

Method 1: Through the WM_COPYDATA Windows message
Method 2: Through a registered window message
Method 3: Through a pipe interface (for Terminal Server printer drivers)

The printer driver will send messages when the following events happen during the printing process:

• Start of Document (StartDoc)
• Start of Page (StartPage)
• End of Page (EndPage)
• End of Document (EndDoc)
• Printer Settings changed
• Image passed in Memory
• Abort

In order to show the usage of the messaging interface of the printer driver, the Resource Toolkit includes the Message Capture Sample.

The Message Capture Sample shows how to capture the printer driver messages in an application (demonstrates Method 1, Method 2 and Method 3).  To help Visual Basic, Delphi or other developers, the Resource Toolkit includes the BiPrnDrv.OCX that makes the process of capturing printer driver messages easy. The OCX will capture every printer driver message internally and will fire an OCX event for every message.

Source code for the Message Capture Sample is available in C++, VB, Delphi, C#, J#, VB .NET.  Using the Start Application feature of the Black Ice printer drivers along with the messaging interface provides a straightforward method of monitoring the printing process.

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