Flex - Printing Support

Flex provides a special class FlexPrintJob to print flex objects.

• FlexPrintJob can be used to print one or more Flex objects, such as a Form or VBox container.
• FlexPrintJob prints the object and all objects that it contains.
• The objects can be all or part of the displayed interface.
  
• The objects can be components that format data specifically for printing.
• The FlexPrintJob class lets you scale the output to fit the page.
• The FlexPrintJob class automatically uses multiple pages to print an object that does not fit on a single page.
• The FlexPrintJob class causes the operating system to display a Print dialog box. You cannot print without some user action.

Prepare and send a print job

You print output by preparing and sending a print job. Let's create an instance of the FlexPrintJob class

var printJob:FlexPrintJob = new FlexPrintJob();

Start the print job

printJob.start(); 

Flex will cause the operating system to display a Print dialog box. Add one or more objects to the print job and specify how to scale them

printJob.addObject(myObject, FlexPrintJobScaleType.MATCH_WIDTH); 

Each object starts on a new page. Send the print job to the printer

printJob.send(); 

Printing Example

Step	Description
1	Create a project with a name HelloWorld under a package com.tutorialspoint.client as explained in the Flex - Create Application chapter.
2	Modify HelloWorld.mxml as explained below. Keep rest of the files unchanged.
3	Compile and run the application to make sure business logic is working as per the requirements.

Following is the content of the modified mxml file src/com.tutorialspoint/HelloWorld.mxml.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<s:Application xmlns:fx="http://ns.adobe.com/mxml/2009" 
   xmlns:s="library://ns.adobe.com/flex/spark" 
   xmlns:mx="library://ns.adobe.com/flex/mx"
   width="100%" height="100%"
   minWidth="500" minHeight="500" 
   initialize="application_initializeHandler(event)">
   <fx:Style source="/com/tutorialspoint/client/Style.css"/>
   <fx:Script>
     <![CDATA[
        import mx.controls.Alert;
        import mx.events.FlexEvent;
        import mx.printing.FlexPrintJob;
        import mx.printing.FlexPrintJobScaleType;
        protected function btnClickMe_clickHandler(event:MouseEvent):void
        {
            // Create an instance of the FlexPrintJob class.
            var printJob:FlexPrintJob = new FlexPrintJob();
         
            // Start the print job.
            if (printJob.start() != true) return;

            // Add the object to print. Do not scale it.
            printJob.addObject(myDataGrid, FlexPrintJobScaleType.NONE);

            // Send the job to the printer.
            printJob.send();
        }

        protected function application_initializeHandler(event:FlexEvent):void
        {
            lblHeader.text = "My Hello World Application";    
        }
     ]]>
   </fx:Script>
   <s:BorderContainer width="500" height="500" id="mainContainer" 
      styleName="container">
      <s:VGroup width="100%" height="100%" gap="50"
         horizontalAlign="center" 
         verticalAlign="middle">
         <s:Label id="lblHeader" fontSize="40" color="0x777777" 
            styleName="heading"/>
         <mx:DataGrid id="myDataGrid" width="300">
            <mx:dataProvider>
               <fx:Object Product="Flex" Code="1000"/>
               <fx:Object Product="GWT" Code="2000"/>
               <fx:Object Product="JAVA" Code="3000"/>
               <fx:Object Product="JUnit" Code="4000"/>
            </mx:dataProvider>
         </mx:DataGrid>
         <s:Button label="Print Me!" id="btnClickMe" 
            click="btnClickMe_clickHandler(event)" 
            styleName="button" />
      </s:VGroup> 
   </s:BorderContainer> 
</s:Application>

Once you are ready with all the changes done, let us compile and run the application in normal mode as we did in Flex - Create Application chapter. If everything is fine with your application, this will produce following result: [ Try it online ]
Click on print me button and you can see the printout of the data grid shown below.