Printing in Actionscript 3 - actionscript-3

Question

How would I go about making a print screen run in flash. So when a user has arranged some artwork via a drag and drop flash/app - they click a button to 'Print' and there current design activates a printer?
Is this straight forward?
Thanks

Answer 1

I had a similar project and managed with something like the following example:
//creating a container as main canvas
var artworkContainers:Sprite = new Sprite();
addChild(artworkContainers);
//example adding content
var anyContentIWantToPrint:Sprite = new Sprite();
anyContentIWantToPrint.graphics.beginFill(0xf67821, 1);
anyContentIWantToPrint.graphics.drawRect(0, 0, 100, 100);
anyContentIWantToPrint.graphics.endFill();
artworkContainers.addChild(anyContentIWantToPrint);
var button:Sprite = new Sprite();
button.graphics.beginFill(0xf67821, 1);
button.graphics.drawRect(0, 0, 120, 60);
button.graphics.endFill();
addChild(button);
button.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, startPrintJobHandler, false, 0, true);
function startPrintJobHandler(event:MouseEvent):void
{
var printJob:PrintJob = new PrintJob();
printJob.start()
var printJobOptions:PrintJobOptions = new PrintJobOptions();
printJobOptions.printAsBitmap = true;
//When 'artworkContainer' will be your artwork canvas, where the user will drag and drop. Replace for the instance name you are using.
printJob.addPage(artworkContainer, null, printJobOptions);
printJob.send();
}

Answer 2

You can check out the PrintJob class.
You use the FlexPrintJob class to print one or more Flex objects, such as a Form or VBox container. For each object that you specify, Flex prints the object and all objects that it contains. The objects can be all or part of the displayed interface, or they can be components that format data specifically for printing. The FlexPrintJob class lets you scale the output to fit the page, and automatically uses multiple pages to print an object that does not fit on a single page.
You use the FlexPrintJob class to print a dynamically rendered
document that you format specifically for printing. This capability is
especially useful for rendering and printing such information as
receipts, itineraries, and other displays that contain external
dynamic content, such as database content and dynamic text.
You often use the FlexPrintJob class within an event listener. For
example, you can use a Button control with an event listener that
prints some or all of the application.
Note: The FlexPrintJob class causes the operating system to display a
Print dialog box. You cannot print without some user action.
Here is an example from Adobe's Live Docs.
private function doPrint():void {
// Create an instance of the FlexPrintJob class.
var printJob:FlexPrintJob = new FlexPrintJob();
// Start the print job.
if (printJob.start() != true) return;
// Add the object to print. Do not scale it.
printJob.addObject(myDataGrid, FlexPrintJobScaleType.NONE);
// Send the job to the printer.
printJob.send();
}

Answer 3

You probably want to look at the PrintJob functionality. You can add and arrange pages, etc. Examples on the Adobe help page.