Print Multiple Files at Once !!

If you would like to print multiple documents at once, then you might find this simple application MultiPrintApp useful. Download it and give it a try.

You can also download the complete source code and modify it, if you like.

Few remarks about the application:

• It collects a list of all the files to be printed into a list box and when ready to go creates a modal dialog progress box with a background-thread to print them. The files can be filtered by their extensions using a small text-box located at the bottom-right corner.
• In the background thread, we take each file and do a ShellExecuteEx( "print" ) on it. This results in the application associated with that document getting started in print mode. That application will take care of the printing layout etc... If you would like to configure the print settings, you should do them in that application apriori. Of course, if you try to print a file that has no associated application with it, then the results are undefined !!
• The background thread, after issuing the print command, waits till the new process completes its printing, before continuing with other files.
• As the printing progresses likewise, we keep updating the status on the progress dialog box.

This is a simple application that can be improved in many ways.

• Currently we cannot drag-drop the files from explorer directly to the right-side list box. Drag-drop support could improve the usability a lot.
• The Add button works only for files. Clicking Add button while selecting a directory does nothing. Support to add files from the selected directories/sub-directories (recursively) could be another good feature.

If you feel like exploring your programming skills a little bit, take this application source code and try improving it to support the above features. And perhaps you can add more too !!