Calculating number of lines on page

[jjjamie]

I wonder if anyone can help me with a small problem...

 

I am currently trying to output RTF files from VB.NET and I have become stuck on one thing. I am trying to work out how many lines of text I can fit onto a page based on the page size, the size of the top and bottom margins and the font size.

 

To make sure that I could work it out right, I opened an empty Word document. The top and bottom margins were set to 2.54 cm and the paper height was 29.7cm (A4). That means that I have a working area of 24.62cm.

 

The font size that I am working with is 24points. I converted this to centimeters using an online convcerter and it gave me 0.846666666666667cm.

 

Here is the strange part: when I manually tested it in Word, I could fit 25 lines of text down the page, but if you divide the working area of the page (24.62cm) by the font size, it gives you 29.078!! I made sure that there was no extra line spacing in Word, just in case that was the problem.

 

Can anyone help me with this? If I don't know how to calculate how many lines I can fit on a page, I will not be able to finish developing the report generator that I am working on.

 

Many thanks in advance

 

Jamie

 

http://www.angelfire.com/az/deaflab/measure.html

[Nerseus]

Although I can't help you exactly, I can mention that there is also a bit of room between lines for readability. You couldn't want one font directly on top of another (not usually). I have no idea how that little extra margin is calculated though. Consider it similar to a double spaced document. The single spaced document still has a little extra room between lines.

 

I wonder if the MeasureString method of the Graphics object (I think) can calculate heights? I seem to recall it returning a Rect structure, which would imply it does. You could try that instead of figuring out the height of one line.

 

-Nerseus

[jfackler]

Give this a try:

Private Sub PrintDocument1_PrintPage(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.Drawing.Printing.PrintPageEventArgs) Handles PrintDocument1.PrintPage
Dim count As Integer = 0
Dim linesPerPage As Single = 0
Dim printFont As Font = New Font("Arial", 14, FontStyle.Bold)
linesPerPage = e.MarginBounds.Height / printFont.GetHeight(e.Graphics)

Then do this:

While count < linesPerPage - 10
'loop stuff to be printed in here
count += 1
If count > linesPerPage Then
           e.HasMorePages = True
       Else
           e.HasMorePages = False
       End If
End While

 

Jon

Edited October 14, 2003 by jfackler