Custom User Interface

The user interface of the printer can be replaced entirely by a custom interface. You can build your new GUI in almost any programming language.

Developers who are redistributing the printer with their own software typically use this feature. Sometimes the user must enter special information that is not directly linked to the document creation. Your custom user interface can be focused on the specific information your users need to supply when a print job is handled.

There is a sample project available. This is a custom GUI written in C#. All it does is ask the user for a color. The color is used in a watermark set by the custom GUI. The custom GUI also control other parameters of the PDF creation in this example. It will use settings to hide the normal dialogs of the printer.

Download Example C# Project

In the example project the code is kept to a minimum. Needless to say, the error handling could be a lot better. However, that is not the purpose of the example.

Set The Custom GUI

You tell the printer to use your customized user interface by setting the customgui value in the configuraiton. This setting is normally set in the global.ini.

customgui="C:\Your Custom Folder\CustomGui.exe" "%1"

The %1 placeholder is substituted with the file name of a temporary XML file created by the printer. This XML file contains the current settings for the printer. Your program can read these settings and modify them. Please note that all the settings are named with lowercase letters.

When the custom program has exited, the printer will look for the same temporary XML file. It will read the modified settings and use those values for the creation of the document.

Abort The Print Job

In case your program has removed the XML file then the printer will abort the further processing of the print job. Normally you will chose to remove the XML file if the user clicks Cancel in your custom GUI. This will stop the processing.