Java printing: creating a PageFormat with minimum acceptable margin

Question

I\'m trying to get the PageFormat correct when I print. Below is an example program that shows my dilemma: I get a different result when I use printJob.setPrintable(pr

Answer 1

Hmm. After trying a number of fruitless efforts, it looks like setting a page to zero margin and then calling PrinterJob.validatePage() seems to be the only way I can get a valid minimum-margin PageFormat:

static private PageFormat getMinimumMarginPageFormat(PrinterJob printJob) {
    PageFormat pf0 = printJob.defaultPage();
    PageFormat pf1 = (PageFormat) pf0.clone();
    Paper p = pf0.getPaper();
    p.setImageableArea(0, 0,pf0.getWidth(), pf0.getHeight());
    pf1.setPaper(p);
    PageFormat pf2 = printJob.validatePage(pf1);
    return pf2;     
}

and then I can change doPrint() to:

protected void doPrint(boolean useBook) {
    RectangleThingy rectangleThingy = new RectangleThingy();
    System.out.println("doPrint("+useBook+")");
    try
    {
        PrinterJob printJob = PrinterJob.getPrinterJob();
        if (useBook)
        {
            Book book = new Book();
            book.append(rectangleThingy, getMinimumMarginPageFormat(printJob));
            printJob.setPageable(book);
        }
        else
        {
            printJob.setPrintable(rectangleThingy);        
        }
        if (printJob.printDialog())
            printJob.print();
    } 
    catch(PrinterException pe) {
        System.out.println("Error printing: " + pe);
    }
}