Writing a Virtual Printer in .NET [closed]

Question

I'm looking to create a virtual printer that passes data to my .NET application. I want to then create an installer that installs both the printer and the .NET application. It would we really nice to be able to write it all in C#, but I have a feeling that this will require a printer driver to be written is unmanaged code. Does anyone know of a fairly clean tutorial or example of how to do this?

Aretina

Answer 1

Did exactly what you are asking using the Github project: Microsoft/Windows-driver-samples/print/XPSDrvSmpl

https://github.com/Microsoft/Windows-driver-samples/tree/master/print/XPSDrvSmpl

Installer: http://wixtoolset.org/

Application: Listen to internal port

Flow: Install printer and application from a single installer. User prints something with your driver while the application listens to the internal port. When data is sent the application picks it up. This is for XPS, can be converted to PDF, but the flow is similar no matter what you are printing. If you need anything else check out Microsoft/Windows-driver-samples/print/ on GitHub or other sources specific to your needs.

Update:

A lot of questions about how to get the driver working so here is a quick example:

Start by downloading Windows Driver Kit (WDK) if you do not have it installed already. When installing choose to add the extension for Visual Studio as well in the final step. In your Visual Studio 2017 Install you need to have Desktop development with C++ to have the right SDKs. If you don't have it see the anser below on how to add it.

How do I add features to Visual Studio 2017?

https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/hardware/windows-driver-kit

Then download the .zip file for Windows-driver-samples master:

https://github.com/Microsoft/Windows-driver-samples/archive/master.zip

Navigate to the folder <UnzipFolder>\print\XPSDrvSmpl and open XPSDrvSmpl.sln in Visual Studio.

Then follow Microsofts own guide on GitHub. As you can see it is for Visual Studio 2015 but I think it is the same for 2017 (not tested yet):

To build a driver solution using Windows Driver Kit (WDK) 10 and Visual Studio 2015, perform the following steps.

1. Open the solution file in Visual Studio 2015.
2. Add all non-binary files (usually located in the \install directory of the sample) to the Package project: a. In the Solution Explorer, right click Driver Files b. Select Add, then click Existing Item c. Navigate to the location to which you downloaded the sample, and select all the files in the install directory, or the equivalent set of non-binary files such as INFs, INIs, GPD, PPD files, etc. d. Click Add
3. Configure these files to be added into the driver package: a. In the Solution Explorer, right click on the solution and choose Add > New Project. Choose Driver Install Package under Visual C++/Windows Driver/Package. b. In the Solution Explorer, right click the Package project and select Properties. c. In the left pane, click Configuration Properties > Driver Install > Package Files. d. In the right pane, use the ellipsis button (...) to browse to the set of files that needs to be added to the driver package. All the data files that you added in Step 2-c, except the INF file, should be added. This configuration is per-architecture, so this configuration must be repeated for each architecture that will be built. e. Click OK.
4. Open the INF file and edit it to match the built output. a. Open the INF file. b. In the Version section, add a reference to a catalog file like this: CatalogFile=XpsDrvSmpl.cat. c. In the SourceDisksFiles section, change the location of the DLL files you are building, to =1. This indicates that there is no architecture specific directory in this driver. If you ship multiple architectures simultaneously, you will need to collate the driver INF manually.

At this point, Visual Studio 2015 will be able to build a driver package and output the files to disk. In order to configure driver signing and deployment, see Developing, Testing, and Deploying Drivers.

https://github.com/Microsoft/Windows-driver-samples/tree/master/print/XPSDrvSmpl#build-the-sample

Newbold

Is there an option to avail utf-8 encoding in the driver ? – Agility

Answer 2

I think you will have to do a lot of WinAPI wrapping. Start researching on Windows Driver Development Kit to find the things you have to do.

I also found this commercial Printer Driver Resource Toolkit for .NET...

Homesteader

Answer 3

You could simply have your app expose itself like an LPD type printer or monitor port 9100. You could then install any print driver you like, and point it a your app.

Gatekeeper

Nice idea. But what about parsing the "LPD data", or whatever comes through the port? – Eichmann

Typically 515, it like most things, is user definable but more often then not it's that. LPD is nice as there is a small header that contains information like destination queue etc. followed by the actual data. Just capture some data and you will see, it's pretty simple. – Gatekeeper

Answer 4

Was looking for an answer for similar question, and found this link through Wikipedia - http://www.colorpilot.com/emfprinterpilot.html (allows to create Virtual Printers in different languages)

Billfish

Answer 5

Why not consider using an alternative approach. Like using an intermediate ready made printing program, such as those freely available Print-to-PDF application. Then all you need is to decode PDF using some 3rd party library (which has free and opensource variance too) instead of cracking your head to reinvent the wheel. There are other Print-to-XXX application which you could also consider depending on the format you see fit.

Christa

Answer 6

I don't thing interpreting PDF approach is any good either. I don't know why you want to do what you want to do. Maybe you're trying to write a PDF printer of your own.

I think you should really give the Windows Driver Development thing a look. If you want to develop a printer driver, I think you'll have to do it in C++.

Good Luck.

Zhao

Answer 7

If I remember correctly Microsoft does not support .NET within printer driver development. I have yet to come across a pure .NET printer driver. You will be a very brave man to do so! The website "Printer Driver Resource Toolkit" does not say that the driver has been written in .NET

Squabble