JavaTM 2 Platform
Standard Ed. 5.0

java.awt.print
Interface Printable


public interface Printable

The Printable interface is implemented by the print methods of the current page painter, which is called by the printing system to render a page. When building a Pageable, pairs of PageFormat instances and instances that implement this interface are used to describe each page. The instance implementing Printable is called to print the page's graphics.

A Printable(..) may be set on a PrinterJob. When the client subsequently initiates printing by calling PrinterJob.print(..) control

is handed to the printing system until all pages have been printed. It does this by calling Printable.print(..) until all pages in the document have been printed. In using the Printable interface the printing commits to image the contents of a page whenever requested by the printing system.

The parameters to Printable.print(..) include a PageFormat which describes the printable area of the page, needed for calculating the contents that will fit the page, and the page index, which specifies the zero-based print stream index of the requested page.

For correct printing behaviour, the following points should be observed:

See Also:
Pageable, PageFormat, PrinterJob

Field Summary
static int NO_SUCH_PAGE
          Returned from print to signify that the pageIndex is too large and that the requested page does not exist.
static int PAGE_EXISTS
          Returned from print(Graphics, PageFormat, int) to signify that the requested page was rendered.
 
Method Summary
 int print(Graphics graphics, PageFormat pageFormat, int pageIndex)
          Prints the page at the specified index into the specified Graphics context in the specified format.
 

Field Detail

PAGE_EXISTS

static final int PAGE_EXISTS
Returned from print(Graphics, PageFormat, int) to signify that the requested page was rendered.

See Also:
Constant Field Values

NO_SUCH_PAGE

static final int NO_SUCH_PAGE
Returned from print to signify that the pageIndex is too large and that the requested page does not exist.

See Also:
Constant Field Values
Method Detail

print

int print(Graphics graphics,
          PageFormat pageFormat,
          int pageIndex)
          throws PrinterException
Prints the page at the specified index into the specified Graphics context in the specified format. A PrinterJob calls the Printable interface to request that a page be rendered into the context specified by graphics. The format of the page to be drawn is specified by pageFormat. The zero based index of the requested page is specified by pageIndex. If the requested page does not exist then this method returns NO_SUCH_PAGE; otherwise PAGE_EXISTS is returned. The Graphics class or subclass implements the PrinterGraphics interface to provide additional information. If the Printable object aborts the print job then it throws a PrinterException.

Parameters:
graphics - the context into which the page is drawn
pageFormat - the size and orientation of the page being drawn
pageIndex - the zero based index of the page to be drawn
Returns:
PAGE_EXISTS if the page is rendered successfully or NO_SUCH_PAGE if pageIndex specifies a non-existent page.
Throws:
PrinterException - thrown when the print job is terminated.

JavaTM 2 Platform
Standard Ed. 5.0

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For further API reference and developer documentation, see Java 2 SDK SE Developer Documentation. That documentation contains more detailed, developer-targeted descriptions, with conceptual overviews, definitions of terms, workarounds, and working code examples.

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