Overview

Provides classes for implementing print support in applications and also contains all base classes and abstractions involved in printing. These base classes are also used by other more specialized printing related packages.

The entry point for interacting with the print system is the PrintManager which is a system service that can be obtained from the current context. The print manager provides APIs for printing, querying the state of print jobs, etc.

Print contract

An application that wants to implement printing must extend PrintDocumentAdapter which defines the contract between the system and the application.The key idea behind this adapter is that the printed content may change based on the selected print options, such as media size, orientation, which requires the content to be re-laid out. The constraints according to which the content has to be laid out are encapsulated in the PrintAttributes class. Once layout is completed the application calls back to the system passing a PrintDocumentInfo instance which describes the generated content. After the content has been laid out the application may be asked to render some pages of that content for preview or printing. The range of pages that have to be rendered is abstracted by the PageRange class.

Print jobs

A print job is represented by the PrintJob class which has behavior methods as well as methods for querying its state. Each print job has a unique id represented by the PrintJobId class and exposes APIs for obtaining a PrintJobInfo which is a snapshot of its state. The print job state may change over time.

Printers

An available printer represented by the PrinterInfo class has a unique id which is abstracted by the PrinterId class. The PrinterInfo contains printer properties such as id, name, description, status, and printer capabilities encapsulated in the PrinterCapabilitiesInfo class. Printer capabilities describe how a printer can print content, for example what are the supported media sizes, color modes, resolutions, etc.