Printing Reports Programmatically Using C# and SQL Server 2000 Reporting Services

Article
02/11/2004

Summary: Learn a technique for printing reports programmatically using the Reporting Services XML Web service and C#.

Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Reporting Services is Microsoft's latest entry into the Business Intellegence marketplace and it joins a host of other BI products for SQL Server 2000. Reporting Services is a new, server-based reporting platform that you can use to create and manage tabular, matrix, graphical, and free-form reports that contain data from relational and multidimensional data sources. The reports that you create can be viewed and managed over a Web-based connection. As a developer, you have several programming opportunities available to you through the Reporting Services API. One of the most appealing aspects of Reporting Services is the open and flexible Web service API (also known as the SOAP API) which enables you to integrate existing features and capabilities of Reporting Services into your own custom reporting and management tools for Web sites and Windows applications. The SOAP API consists of close to one-hundred different XML Web service methods that you can use to integrate anything from report management to report rendering and execution into your custom applications. In this article, I will focus on one programming technique in particular: programmatically rendering a report and then sending that report directly to a local or network printer using C# and the Reporting Services Web service.

Before reading on, you can view the source code at the end of this article. The source code assumes you are creating a simple console application to test your print functionality and your ability to successfully call the Reporting Services Web service.

Creating a Reference to the Web service

The first thing you need to do is add a Web reference to the Reporting Services Web service in your development project that points to your report server. This can be done by right-clicking on your project in Visual Studio and choosing Add Web reference... . You should add a reference to a local report server (localhost) at "https://localhost/reportserver/reportservice.asmx". If you have a remote report server, simply change the URL of the Web reference. The end point for any Reporting Services Web service is "https://servername/reportserver/reportservice.asmx". For you Web service enthusiasts, you can access the end point through your browser with the ?wsdl directive to see the Web Service Description Language (WSDL) for the Reporting Services Web service (https://servername/reportserver/reportservice.asmx?wsdl).

The Render Method

Once you have added the appropriate Web reference, you will have all of the Web methods at your disposal. The Web methods are methods of the ReportingService class of the Web service proxy. To access the Web methods, you need to instantiate a ReportingService object and set credentials. A sample of this looks like the following:

 // Create proxy object and authenticate        
Console.WriteLine("Authenticating to the Web service...");
rs = new ReportingService();
rs.Credentials = System.Net.CredentialCache.DefaultCredentials;

Once you have created a proxy object for the Web service, you can access the methods as you would any normal C# class. The method that we are most interested in for the purpose of this article is the ReportingService.Render method. This is the primary method for rendering reports that have been published to the report server. The syntax for the Render method is as follows:

 public Byte[] Render(
string Report,
string Format,
string HistoryID,
string DeviceInfo,
[Namespace].ParameterValue[] Parameters,
[Namespace].DataSourceCredentials[] Credentials,
string ShowHideToggle,
out string Encoding,
out string MimeType,
out [Namespace].ParameterValue[] ParametersUsed,
out [Namespace].Warning[] Warnings
out string[] StreamIds);
Member of [Namespace].ReportingService

For more details about the various method arguments, see Reporting Services Books Online.

In code, you need to render to the Image output format designated by the Format argument. The value of this parameter is a string, simply "IMAGE". To get Enhanced Meta File (EMF) output, the kind of output you will need for printing, you also need to specify device information for the call to Render. That device information should be passed as an XML string for the DeviceInfo argument and should look like "<DeviceInfo><OutputFormat>EMF</OutputFormat></DeviceInfo>". The Render method returns the report as a base 64-encoded byte array. This array of bytes can be used to perform a number of functions including saving the output to a file on the hard drive, or more importantly, sending the bytes as a stream to a printer.

The sample code at the end of this article renders one of the report samples that ships with Reporting Services: the Company Sales sample report. Once you have effectively used the Render method to render a report, you can begin to think about how to print that report programmatically.

Printing the Report Programmatically

There are a few key challenges here in order to be able to print a report successfully using C# and Reporting Services. One challenge is figuring out how to print in the .NET Framework using C#. In the sample code included with this article, I use the classes of the System.Drawing.Printing namespace in order to send EMF output to a printer. The source code can show you how it all comes together. From a Reporting Services standpoint, the key challenge is determining how many pages there are in the report. The SOAP API for Reporting Services lacks the ability to evaluate a report's number of printed pages through any exposed report properties. So the trick is to determine how many pages there are through some other means. Fortunately, the SOAP API does return an array of stream IDs whenever Render is called. What are these stream IDs you ask? Well, when EMF output is selected, the Render method returns the results of the rendered report as a byte array, but it only sends back the first page. Subsequent pages are associated with the report as streams with accompanying stream IDs. By counting the number of StreamIDs in the resultant string array, you can determine how many pages are in the report. The following code should give you the number of pages:

 // The total number of pages of the report is 1 + the streamIDs
int m_numberOfPages = streamIDs.Length + 1;

Once you know how many pages you are dealing with you can call the Render method for each page in the report and send that page to the printer. You can render specific pages using device information. The device information for this is StartPage. In the sample code, the device information for each subsequent call to render (that is each call after the original one) looks like "<DeviceInfo><OutputFormat>EMF</OutputFormat><StartPage>current page </StartPage></DeviceInfo>". After each page is rendered, you load the page (set of rendered bytes) into an array of pages, a multi-dimensional array of bytes, and process that array. For each byte array, you generate a memory stream and load an image of that memory stream into the print document. From there you can print each page. Printing using this technique is not for beginners, so you may want to study the source code and consult your .NET Framework Developers Guide for more information.

One more thing to remember is that you will need to replace the printer name placeholder in the source code with a valid printer name for your system:

 static void Main(string[] args)
{
   PrintExample pe = new PrintExample();
   pe.PrintReport(@"PrinterName");
}

Okay so get your hands dirty with some code, that is really the whole point of this article anyway! Seriously, I hope this provided you with some insight into printing reports programmatically using C# and Reporting Services. The Web service and its methods expose a rich set of operations that enable you to draw on the complete functionality of the report server and allow you to create custom tools for any part of the report life cycle, from management to execution. I highly encourage you to not only get involved in programming with XML Web services, but to experiment with tools that harness the power of the Reporting Services Web service and start integrating reporting into your current development projects.

Source Code (app.cs)

 /*=====================================================================

  File:      app.cs
  
  Summary:  A simple console application that demonstrates one way to
            print Reporting Services reports to a printer.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

 This code is provided "AS IS" with no warranties. Do not use this code
 in your production environment. This sample is not endorsed by Microsoft
 and does not represent production quality code.

======================================================================== */
using System;
using System.Drawing;
using System.Drawing.Imaging;
using System.Drawing.Printing;
using System.IO;
using System.Web.Services.Protocols;
using PrintReport.reportserver;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices; // For Marshal.Copy
namespace PrintReport
{
    /// <summary>
    /// A simple console application that demonstrates one way to
    /// print Reporting Services reports to a printer.
    /// </summary>
    class app
    {
        /// <summary>
        /// The main entry point for the application.
        /// </summary>
        [STAThread]
         static void Main(string[] args)
         {
            PrintExample pe = new PrintExample();
            // The name of the printer should be added here;
            // this could be a local or network printer.
            pe.PrintReport(@"PrinterName");
         }
    }
   class PrintExample
   {
      ReportingService rs;
      private byte[][] m_renderedReport;
      private Graphics.EnumerateMetafileProc m_delegate = null;
      private MemoryStream m_currentPageStream;
      private Metafile m_metafile = null;
      int m_numberOfPages;
      private int m_currentPrintingPage;
      private int m_lastPrintingPage;
                  
      public PrintExample()
      {
         // Create proxy object and authenticate
         Console.WriteLine("Authenticating to the Web service...");
         rs = new ReportingService();
         rs.Credentials = System.Net.CredentialCache.DefaultCredentials;
      }
      public byte[][] RenderReport(string reportPath)
      {
         // Private variables for rendering
         string deviceInfo = null;
         string format = "IMAGE";
         Byte[] firstPage = null;
         string encoding;
         string mimeType;
         Warning[] warnings = null;
         ParameterValue[] reportHistoryParameters = null;
         string[] streamIDs = null;
         Byte[][] pages = null;
                                             
         // Build device info based on the start page
         deviceInfo = 
            String.Format(@"<DeviceInfo><OutputFormat>{0}</OutputFormat></DeviceInfo>", "emf");
            
         //Exectute the report and get page count.
         try
         {
            // Renders the first page of the report and returns streamIDs for 
            // subsequent pages
            firstPage = rs.Render(
               reportPath, 
               format, 
               null, 
               deviceInfo,
               null,
               null,
               null,
               out encoding,
               out mimeType,
               out reportHistoryParameters, 
               out warnings, 
               out streamIDs);
            // The total number of pages of the report is 1 + the streamIDs         
            m_numberOfPages = streamIDs.Length + 1;
            pages = new Byte[m_numberOfPages][];
            
            // The first page was already rendered
            pages[0] = firstPage;
            
            for (int pageIndex = 1; pageIndex < m_numberOfPages; pageIndex++)
            {
               // Build device info based on start page
               deviceInfo = 
                  String.Format(@"<DeviceInfo><OutputFormat>{0}</OutputFormat><StartPage>{1}</StartPage></DeviceInfo>", 
                    "emf", pageIndex+1);
               pages[pageIndex] = rs.Render(
                  reportPath, 
                  format, 
                  null, 
                  deviceInfo,
                  null,
                  null,
                  null,
                  out encoding,
                  out mimeType,
                  out reportHistoryParameters, 
                  out warnings, 
                  out streamIDs);
            }
         }
         catch (SoapException ex)
         {
            Console.WriteLine(ex.Detail.InnerXml);
         }
         catch (Exception ex)
         {
            Console.WriteLine(ex.Message); 
         }
         finally
         {
            Console.WriteLine("Number of pages: {0}", pages.Length);
         }
         return pages;
      }
      
      public bool PrintReport(string printerName)
      {
         this.RenderedReport = this.RenderReport("/SampleReports/Company Sales");
         try
         {  
            // Wait for the report to completely render.
            if(m_numberOfPages < 1)
               return false;
            PrinterSettings printerSettings = new PrinterSettings();
            printerSettings.MaximumPage = m_numberOfPages;
            printerSettings.MinimumPage = 1;
            printerSettings.PrintRange = PrintRange.SomePages;
            printerSettings.FromPage = 1;
            printerSettings.ToPage   = m_numberOfPages;
            printerSettings.PrinterName = printerName;
            PrintDocument pd = new PrintDocument();
            m_currentPrintingPage = 1;
            m_lastPrintingPage = m_numberOfPages;
            pd.PrinterSettings = printerSettings;
            // Print report
            Console.WriteLine("Printing report...");
            pd.PrintPage += new PrintPageEventHandler(this.pd_PrintPage);
            pd.Print();
         }
         catch(Exception ex) 
         {
            Console.WriteLine(ex.Message);
         }
         finally
         {
            // Clean up goes here.
         }
         return true;
      }
      private void pd_PrintPage(object sender, PrintPageEventArgs ev)
      {
         ev.HasMorePages = false;
         if (m_currentPrintingPage <= m_lastPrintingPage && MoveToPage(m_currentPrintingPage))
         {
            // Draw the page
            ReportDrawPage(ev.Graphics);
            // If the next page is less than or equal to the last page, 
            // print another page.
            if (++m_currentPrintingPage <= m_lastPrintingPage)
               ev.HasMorePages = true;
         }
      }
      
      // Method to draw the current emf memory stream 
      private void ReportDrawPage(Graphics g)
      {
         if(null == m_currentPageStream || 0 == m_currentPageStream.Length || null ==m_metafile)
            return;
         lock(this)
         {
            // Set the metafile delegate.
            int width = m_metafile.Width;
            int height= m_metafile.Height;
            m_delegate = new Graphics.EnumerateMetafileProc(MetafileCallback);
            // Draw in the rectangle
            Point destPoint = new Point(0, 0);
            g.EnumerateMetafile(m_metafile,destPoint , m_delegate);
            // Clean up
            m_delegate = null;
         }
      }
      private bool MoveToPage(Int32 page)
      {
         // Check to make sure that the current page exists in
         // the array list
         if(null == this.RenderedReport[m_currentPrintingPage-1])
            return false;
         // Set current page stream equal to the rendered page
         m_currentPageStream = new MemoryStream(this.RenderedReport[m_currentPrintingPage-1]);
         // Set its postion to start.
         m_currentPageStream.Position = 0;
         // Initialize the metafile
         if(null != m_metafile)
         {
            m_metafile.Dispose();
            m_metafile = null;
         }
         // Load the metafile image for this page
         m_metafile =  new Metafile((Stream)m_currentPageStream);
         return true;
      }
      private bool MetafileCallback(
         EmfPlusRecordType recordType,
         int flags,
         int dataSize,
         IntPtr data,
         PlayRecordCallback callbackData)
      {  
         byte[] dataArray = null;
         // Dance around unmanaged code.
         if (data != IntPtr.Zero)
         {
            // Copy the unmanaged record to a managed byte buffer 
            // that can be used by PlayRecord.
            dataArray = new byte[dataSize];
            Marshal.Copy(data, dataArray, 0, dataSize);
         }
         // play the record.      
         m_metafile.PlayRecord(recordType, flags, dataSize, dataArray);
            
         return true;
      }
      public byte[][] RenderedReport
      {
         get 
         {
            return m_renderedReport;
         }
         set
         {
            m_renderedReport = value;
         }
      }
   }
}

Comments

Anonymous
February 12, 2004
good stuff! keep up the good work...
Anonymous
March 23, 2004
Hi,
Thanks for this article...

But it is not working, When I call, "pd.Print".
I am getting following exception.. "A null context handle was passed from the client to the host during a remote procedure call"

The only change is I am printing from Web application and not through console application...

Can you pls help ?
Anonymous
April 01, 2004
Thinks for the article, it was very helpful.

In order to get this code to print my report page the correct size, I had to make the following minor change:

<code>
// Draw in the rectangle
Point[] points = new Point[3];
Point destPoint = new Point(0, 0);
Point destPoint1 = new Point(width, 0);
Point destPoint2 = new Point(0, height);

points[0]=destPoint;
points[1]=destPoint1;
points[2]=destPoint2;

g.EnumerateMetafile(m_metafile,points, m_delegate);
</code>

I think you were heading in this direction, since you had already declared the width and height variables.

Thanks,
Keith Walton
NHXS
Anonymous
April 01, 2004
Works fine.... Almost :(
Your code is working, but when I'd like to print report as landscape I've some problems. I've informed deviceinfo that paper size is 11.25in*8.25in (A4 in landscape) and Render generates report in landscape (in fact it renders it to 6 pages when 2 would be enough). Printer prints it on portait pages inspite of setting printerSettings.DefaultPageSettings.Landscape = true;
Anonymous
April 02, 2004
Okay, so this is my multiple help post. Here we go:

Sameer,

Did you set impersonate=true in your ASP.NET client app Web.config? Where does your client app live?

Keith,

Thanks for the heads up. I will do some additional testing and post your fix if it all checks out. Thanks again.

Lesio,
Did you see Keith's post? Did you set up your printer settings as well as the render size and width. If you are familiar with the actual devmode structure for the Win32 API that is the underlying API for PrintDocument, you will notice that you should not set width and height, rather simply orientation. Does your orientation match the render width/height and does your report size that you defined in the RDL also match A4?

Okay, let me know.
Anonymous
April 02, 2004
Do you have a similar example for VB.NET, or can you direct me to a source that does?
Thank you.
Anonymous
April 04, 2004
Yes, I saw it... I've to add explicite size of page in deviceInfo definition, cause without it I was receiving page size as portarait in ReportDrawPage function & Keith's ammandement with Points in fact didn't work. When I added all this things & set printer default orientation into landscape then report is printing properly.
Anonymous
April 05, 2004
I tested your code its working fine with Format type "IMAGE". Any idea how to make this run for other formats like CSV,XML,PDF?
Any help in this regard is greatly appreciated.
Pl. contact me at c-ashinde@state.pa.us
Anonymous
April 08, 2004
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
April 14, 2004
Hi,

I'm fairly new to these stuff... How do I set the report parameters in this example?

Thanks
Anonymous
April 23, 2004
Zam,

I'm also learning this. The following seems helpful.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/RSPROG/htm/rsp_ref_soapapi_service_lz_6x0z.asp
Anonymous
April 26, 2004
it works fine!
How to get orientation from rdl definition?
Anonymous
April 26, 2004
You will have to read the PageHeight and PageWidth elements of the report defintion to determine orientation.
Anonymous
April 27, 2004
Fine.
Here is the source I'm using (not too clean, anyway it works!)

public bool isLandscape(string reportName)
{
string rdl;
string sheight = "", swidth = "";
byte[] reportDefinition = null;
double Height;
double Width;
System.Xml.XmlDocument doc = new System.Xml.XmlDocument();

reportDefinition = rs.GetReportDefinition(reportName);
System.Text.UTF8Encoding enc = new System.Text.UTF8Encoding();
rdl = enc.GetString(reportDefinition);
doc.LoadXml(rdl);
XmlNodeList elemList = doc.GetElementsByTagName ("PageHeight");

int i;
for (i = 0 ; i<elemList[0].InnerXml.Length; i++)
{
if ((elemList[0].InnerXml[i] >= '0' && elemList[0].InnerXml[i] <= '9')|| elemList[0].InnerXml[i] <= '.' )
{
//= elemList[0].InnerXml[i];
}
else { break; }
}
sheight= elemList[0].InnerXml.Substring(0,i);
Height = Convert.ToDouble (sheight);

elemList = doc.GetElementsByTagName ("PageWidth");
for (i = 0 ; i<elemList[0].InnerXml.Length;i++)
{
if ((elemList[0].InnerXml[i] >= '0' && elemList[0].InnerXml[i] <= '9')|| elemList[0].InnerXml[i] <= '.' )
{

} else { break; }
}
swidth= elemList[0].InnerXml.Substring(0,i);
swidth= swidth.Replace (".",",");
Width = Convert.ToDouble (swidth);

if (Height < Width)
{
return true;
}
else
{
return false;
}
}
Anonymous
June 01, 2004
As asked before, how can you stream a PDF type to the printer ?

Thanks.
Anonymous
June 09, 2004
It works great. I'm using it from ASP.NET. One problem: I would like not to go to a default printer that I already know, but at the press of a print button to spawn the Internet Explorer print dialog...
Is this possible?
Thanks
Anonymous
June 11, 2004
Note: Anything relating to size is referencing the size of an .emf (image type) file.

The ability to do this is great! However, I was concerned about the size of the .emf in the sample report used in the code above, a whopping 1,621 KB. This is significant if you want to stream across a network, considering the report was only 1 page and has potential to get very large. The sample report used background images which is why I think it was so big. I created a simple 1 page report and it was 31 KB (.emf) which relieved me.

However, I am concerned with the variations in size between these 2 reports, both being 1 page long, but drastically different in size.
Do I need to keep my reports simple, or just avoid using a repeating background image ? I have no in-depth knowledge about .emf and what determines thier size, but I need to use them as it is an excellent windows format for printing.

Best Regards.
Anonymous
June 13, 2004
I'm printing using a method similar to the above using an EMF image, I display the report in a printpreview control and it looks fine however when printing to the printer the report is cropped to about 75%. All works fine if i use reporting services installed locally instead of on the win2k server.
Anonymous
June 18, 2004
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
June 18, 2004
Great example and thanks for posting this code! Cheers and beers to you my friend.
Anonymous
June 21, 2004
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
June 22, 2004
For "Access is Denied" error is fixed by
<identity impersonate="true" />

-AK
Anonymous
June 29, 2004
my weblog » Printing in Reporting Services
Anonymous
July 06, 2004
where do you put <identity impersonate = "true"
Anonymous
July 07, 2004
In the Web.config file of the client application.
Anonymous
July 15, 2004
Hi All,

I have a one pager that just sneaks ove to two pages. The original margins all round are 0.25 in and the original page size in design time is 8.5in x 11.95in (A4). I made the length 11.95in so that it would print to the complete length of the page, cause at 11.00in it stops printing about 5cm before the bottom of the page. This works nicely when I export to PDF then print from there.

Now, we have the need to print directly to the default client printer. This is when I stumbled onto this code. The code works nicely, except that it cuts off the report about 2.5cm from the bottom whereas it should be printing about 1cm from the bottom.

I have tries both Keith's posts but still doing the same thing.

Has anyone got any idea why it is doing this.

Thanks in advance.
Graham
Anonymous
August 04, 2004
Hi! It was very helpful, thanks. However a problem appears when I try to run the code. It gives a rsAccessDenied and says that my permissions are not sufficient and stuff like that. What could it be?

Thanks in advance!
Sharon.
Anonymous
August 04, 2004
The comment has been removed
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Anonymous
January 18, 2009
PingBack from http://www.keyongtech.com/2198907-using-mapped-printers-on-report

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Printing Reports Programmatically Using C# and SQL Server 2000 Reporting Services

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