Differentiate between 'Print' and 'Print Preview' in VBA code

[Mattantaliss]

Hello,

I have set up some code in a Workbook_BeforePrint Sub to log information as
worksheets are printed. That is, for example, I have sheetA, sheetB, and
sheetLog, and whenever a user prints either sheetA or sheetB, my code will
take some information (e.g., name and date) from that sheet and copy it to
sheetLog.

The issue I have now discovered is that the information will also be logged
if the user merely executes a Print Preview, which makes sense to me. I am
wondering, though, if there is a way to differentiate, in the code, between
an actual 'Print' and just a 'Print Preview'. I am envisioning something like:

If <just Print Preview> Then
<don't log information>
Else 'actually Printing
<do stuff as normal>
End If

Does such a distinction between 'Print' and 'Print Preview' exist?

 

[Doug Glancy]

Mattantaliss,

I googled this and the answer seems to be "no." Here's Chip Pearson a year
ago in response to a question pretty much identical to yours:

"The BeforePrint is rather anemic; it doesn't tell you what is being printed
(a range, a sheet, or a workbook) and doesn't distinguish between printing
and print preview. I don't think there is any solid way to do what you
want."

You could always query the user inside the BeforePrint event as to what
they're doing, I guess, but that sounds annoying.

hth,

Doug

 

[Mattantaliss]

Hi Doug,

Thanks for the information. I too had googled this question, but just wasn't
having any luck with it (and definitely hadn't stumbled across Chip's
response). I think, in this instance, Print Preview won't be used too often,
if ever; and instead of slowing things down with a dialog to respond to, I'll
just let the co-worker I am writing this for know about how it acts so she
may go back and delete any logged information from a Print Preview. Thanks
again... that does help.

matt

 

[GS]

You might find this interesting! I placed some code to display a message in
the Before_Print event and ran PrintPreview. The message displayed, the
PrintPreview window opened, I closed it, the message displayed again, then
the sheet printed.

Now, ..what's up with that?

FWIW
Garry

 

[Mattantaliss]

Hello,

As a follow-up on this, I got to thinking that if I am unable to tell the
difference between a 'Print' and a 'Print Preview', I might be able to just
tell when the 'Print Preview' window has closed and then undo any logging
that had occurred when it was brought up. Would it be possible to know when
that window has closed to have some code undo the logging that had been done?
I'm picturing something like:
<onPrintPreviewClose>
<delete row(s) of logged info>