wordpad automation file printing

My problem is the following. I want to print from matlab to the default windows printer a text file created with matlab.

I have successfully open the file using

system("C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows NT\Accessories\wordpad.exe & myfile.txt")

I can manually print the file and exit wordpad. My question is how can I programmatically open the file print and quit wordpad in a siingle command?

A single command because once system("C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows NT\Accessories\wordpad.exe & myfile.txt") is done matlab is waiting until wordpad is closed.

Another way may be to use activeX with word. This initial choice is to avoid end user to have microsoft office.

Thanks a lot for any suggestion.

Answer 1

[Mario Malic]

Hi Alain,

here's the partial answer, see the Internet Explorer way.The issue is that you'll get the printer dialog box in which you'll have to press the button to print manually.

If you're able to somehow find the way to do it automatically, it'd be preety cool. There are few topics on web that are concerned with this dialog box, but in other environments, so if you're brave enough, try them in MATLAB.

There is another way with notepad, see arguments here.

Sending keystrokes to the opened application, also useful but due to the fact that printing occurs in another window, sending enter won't close the dialog box. See here.

Edit so the answer is on top:

WordPadProcess = System.Diagnostics.Process;
WordPadProcess.StartInfo.Arguments = "/p filename.txt"
WordPadProcess.StartInfo.FileName = "C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows NT\Accessories\wordpad.exe";
WordPadProcess.StartInfo.UseShellExecute = 0; % you get the error below if run with true
WordPadProcess.Start();
while ~WordPadProcess.HasExited; pause(0.5); end % MATLAB won't proceed further until WordPad is closed
%Message: The Process object must have the UseShellExecute property set
%to false in order to use environment variables.

If one wants to close the process, it can be done with

WordPadProcess.Kill;

[Alain Barraud]

thanks a lot for your ref. Printing is obtained by adding \p before the file name. Not yet found how to kill wordpad. If I find a solution I'll share it here.

Alain

[Mario Malic]

Use with caution, this will close all wordpad.exe processes.

system('taskkill /im wordpad.exe'); % If opened document has unsaved changes, it'll prompt you to save
system('taskkill /f /im wordpad.exe'); % It will force close the WordPad, without saving changes

[Alain Barraud]

hello,

I have also found this command. The problem is that once wordpad is opened matlab is waiting until wordpad will be closed manually. The solution would be probably to create an exec file containing opening printing and exiting wordpad commands.

TThe activeX approach with word does not present this difficulty.

Alain

[Mario Malic]

Here's an alternative then, I tested it with system command to close it and it works.

WordPadProcess = System.Diagnostics.Process;
WordPadProcess.StartInfo.Arguments = "/p filename.txt"
WordPadProcess.StartInfo.FileName = "C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows NT\Accessories\wordpad.exe";
WordPadProcess.StartInfo.UseShellExecute = 0; % you get the error below if run with true
WordPadProcess.Start();
while ~WordPadProcess.HasExited; pause(0.5); end

%Message: The Process object must have the UseShellExecute property set
%to false in order to use environment variables.

[Alain Barraud]

You are right. It works fine.

Where have you found help about "System.Diagnostics.Process"?

Thanks a lot

Alain

[Mario Malic]

Great!

It is part of .NET framework, here's documentation on it.

You can close the process by this line as well (I glanced over at the Methods, learned something new).

WordPadProcess.Kill;

[Alain Barraud]

I have done the following modification in order to accept file name as a variable

function PrintTextFile(FileName)

WordPadProcess = System.Diagnostics.Process;

FileName=["/p ",FileName];FileName=string(cat(2,FileName{:}));

WordPadProcess.StartInfo.Arguments = FileName;

WordPadProcess.StartInfo.FileName = "C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows NT\Accessories\wordpad.exe";

WordPadProcess.StartInfo.UseShellExecute = 0; % you get an error when true !!

WordPadProcess.Start();

while ~WordPadProcess.HasExited; pause(0.5); end