.net printing multiple reports in one document (architecture question)
- by LawsonM
I understand how to print a single document via the PrintDocument class. However, I want to print multiple reports in one document. Each "report" will consist of charts, tables, etc. I want to have two reports per page. I've studied the few examples I can find on how to combine multiple documents into one; however, they always seem to work by creating a collection of objects (e.g. customer or order) that are then iterated over and drawn in the OnPrintPage method.
My problem and hence the "architecture" question is that I don't want to cache the objects required to produce the report since they are very large and memory intensive. I'd simply like the resulting "report". One thought I had was to print the report to a metafile, cache that instead in a "MultiplePrintDocument" class and then position those images appropriately two to a page in the OnPrintPage method. I think this would be a lot more efficient and scalable in my case.
But I'm not a professional programmer and can't figure out if I'm barking up the wrong tree here. I think the Graphics.BeginContainer and Graphics.Save methods might be relevant, but can't figure out how to implement or if there is a better way. Any pointers would be greatly appreciated.
