Printing Text File in C#

In this article, you will learn how to print a text file in C#.

Step 1

Create a Windows Forms application using Visual Studio and add two Button and one TextBox controls to the Form. Change names for the Buttons to Browse and Print respectively.

Step 2

Write the following code on the Browse button click event handler.

OpenFileDialog fdlg = new OpenFileDialog();
fdlg.Title = "C# Corner Open File Dialog";
fdlg.InitialDirectory = @"C:\ ";
fdlg.Filter =
"Text files (*.txt | .txt | All files (*.*) | *.*";
fdlg.FilterIndex = 2;
fdlg.RestoreDirectory = true;
if (fdlg.ShowDialog() == DialogResult.OK)
{
    textBox1.Text = fdlg.FileName;
}

Step 3

Before we write code on the Print button click event handler, define two private variables on class level.

private Font verdana10Font;
private StreamReader reader;

Now import these two namespaces.

using System.IO;
using System.Drawing.Printing;

Write the following code on Print button click event handler. 

string filename=textBox1.Text.ToString();
//Create a StreamReader object
reader = new StreamReader (filename);
//Create a Verdana font with size 10
verdana10Font = new Font ("Verdana", 10);
//Create a PrintDocument object
PrintDocument pd = new PrintDocument();
//Add PrintPage event handler
pd.PrintPage += new PrintPageEventHandler(this.PrintTextFileHandler);
//Call Print Method
pd.Print();
//Close the reader
if (reader != null)
    reader.Close();

And add the following method to the class.

private void PrintTextFileHandler (object sender, PrintPageEventArgs ppeArgs)
{
    //Get the Graphics object
    Graphics g = ppeArgs.Graphics;
    float linesPerPage = 0;
    float yPos = 0;
    int count = 0;
    //Read margins from PrintPageEventArgs
    float leftMargin = ppeArgs.MarginBounds.Left;
    float topMargin = ppeArgs.MarginBounds.Top;
    string line = null;
    //Calculate the lines per page on the basis of the height of the page and the height of the font
    linesPerPage = ppeArgs.MarginBounds.Height/verdana10Font.GetHeight (g);
    //Now read lines one by one, using StreamReader
    while (count<linesPerPage && (( line = reader.ReadLine ()) != null))
    {
        //Calculate the starting position
        yPos = topMargin + (count * verdana10Font.GetHeight (g));
        //Draw text
        g.DrawString (line, verdana10Font, Brushes.Black,leftMargin, yPos, new StringFormat());
        //Move to next line
        count++;
    }
    //If PrintPageEventArgs has more pages to print
    if (line != null)
    {
        ppeArgs.HasMorePages = true;
    }
    else
    {
        ppeArgs.HasMorePages = false;
    }
}

Step 4

Now build and run the application. Click Browse button and open a text file and click Print button to print the file contents.