Esatto Virtual Printer

This project is a virtual printer driver that can be used to generate XPS from any application that can print. XPS can then be used, printed, converted, or have text extracted.

Use

Installation

1. Install manually or via your installer bootstrapper Esatto.VirtualPrinter.Setup.msi (from the release page)
2. Use VirtualPrinterSystemConfiguration.Printers.Add(name, exePath) or Esatto.VirtualPrinter.PortInstaller.exe addprinter name exepath to add a virtual printer to the system

See Esatto.VirtualPrinter.PrintToFileTarget.Setup for an example of how to register a printer using an MSI.

Printing

1. Print to the virtual printer from any application
2. The print driver (esattovp3.inf) will convert the print job to XPS
3. The spooler port (EsPortMon4.dll) will receive the job, save it to a file, and invoke your exe

Job File

When your exe is invoked, it will be passed the path to the job file as the first argument. The job file is a valid XPS document. It does have some special data at the end that can be ignored, or parsed out by using Esatto.VirtualPrinter.SpoolFile.

See Esatto.VirtualPrinter.PrintToFileTarget for an example app which handles a print job.