Java Foundation Classes in a Nutshell

of the applet or component. Note, however, that built-in AWT components are

drawn by the native GUI system, rather than a

paint() method, and may not

print correctly.

4. When you are done drawing the page, you call the

dispose() method of the

Graphics object to send that page description to the printer. If you need to

print another page, you can call the

getGraphics() method of the PrintJob

again to obtain a new Graphics object for the next page and repeat the pro-

cess of drawing and calling

dispose().

5. When you have printed all of your pages, you end the print job itself by call-

ing the

end() method of the PrintJob object.

With the Java 1.1 printing API, the coordinate system of the printer is very much

like the coordinate system used when drawing on-screen. The origin is at the top

left, X coordinates run from left to right, and Y coordinates run from the top to the

bottom of the page. The coordinate system uses a resolution of 72 points per inch,

which is a typical resolution for monitors as well. Most printers support much

higher resolutions than this, however, and they use that extra resolution when

printing text, for example. However, because the Java 1.1

Graphics object does

not allow floating-point coordinates, all graphics must be positioned exactly at

integer positions.

Pr inting in Java 1.2

Java 1.2 introduces a more complete printing API. As in Java 1.1, printing is done

by calling methods ...