How To Determine Available PaperBins with DeviceCapabilities API (194789)

SUMMARY

If setting the PaperBin property of the Printer object fails to select the desired bin, it might be because the printer driver does not recognize the value being assigned. For example, you assign the constant for the upper bin (vbPRBNUpper) and it fails. It turns out that the printer driver considers its upper bin to be the Cassette bin. In this case, you need to use the Cassette constant to select the printer's upper bin.

This article shows how to enumerate a printer's paper bins.

MORE INFORMATION

Step-by-Step Example

Create a Standard EXE project in Visual Basic. Form1 is created by default.
Add a CommandButton and TextBox to the form.
Set Text1's ScrollBar property to "2 - Vertical" and the MultiLine property to "True."

Place the following code into Form1's code window:

Option Explicit

Private Declare Function DeviceCapabilities Lib "winspool.drv" _
   Alias "DeviceCapabilitiesA" (ByVal lpDeviceName As String, _
   ByVal lpPort As String, ByVal iIndex As Long, lpOutput As Any, _
   ByVal dev As Long) As Long

Private Const DC_BINS = 6
Private Const DC_BINNAMES = 12

Private Sub Command1_Click()
   Dim prn As Printer
   Dim dwbins As Long
   Dim ct As Long
   Dim nameslist As String
   Dim nextString As String
   Dim numBin() As Integer

   Text1.Font.Name = "Courier New"
   Text1.Font.Size = 12
   Text1.Text = ""
   For Each prn In Printers
        dwbins = DeviceCapabilities(prn.DeviceName, prn.Port, _
          DC_BINS, ByVal vbNullString, 0)
        ReDim numBin(1 To dwbins)
        nameslist = String(24 * dwbins, 0)
        dwbins = DeviceCapabilities(prn.DeviceName, prn.Port, _
          DC_BINS, numBin(1), 0)
        dwbins = DeviceCapabilities(prn.DeviceName, prn.Port, _
          DC_BINNAMES, ByVal nameslist, 0)
        If Text1.Text <> "" Then
           Text1.Text = Text1.Text & vbCrLf & vbCrLf
        End If
        Text1.Text = Text1.Text & prn.DeviceName
        For ct = 1 To dwbins
           nextString = Mid(nameslist, 24 * (ct - 1) + 1, 24)
           nextString = Left(nextString, InStr(1, nextString, _
             Chr(0)) - 1)
           nextString = String(6 - Len(CStr(numBin(ct))), " ") & _
           numBin(ct) & "  " & nextString
           Text1.Text = Text1.Text & vbCrLf & nextString
        Next ct
   Next prn
End Sub

Private Sub Form_Load()
   ' Size and position the Form and controls
   Me.Height = 7000
   Me.Width = 7000
   Text1.Top = 100
   Text1.Left = 100
   Text1.Height = 6450
   Text1.Width = 5000
   Text1.Text = ""   ' Clear the TextBox
   Command1.Left = 5300
   Command1.Top = 1000
   Command1.Width = 1500
   Command1.Caption = "List Bins"
End Sub

Run the project and click on the CommandButton labeled "List Bins." The TextBox is filled with a list of all installed printers and the PaperBin settings each one supports.

NOTE: This approach lists all PaperBins known to the printer driver, but every bin listed is not guaranteed to be physically installed on the printer. For example, some printers are available with an optional envelope feeder. This selection is reported by the API even if that feature is not currently installed on the printer.