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8.2 The printpage class

The printpage class takes control of producing printed output on a page. To start printing, an object of some subclass of printpage is created, which will handle all further printing. For example, to print to a PostScript stream or file, an object of class printpage_ps would be created. Once the printpage class has been created, it can be used to place text directly on the page. It can also be used to create printrow objects for printing rows and lines.

Note that positions on the page are always measured from the bottom left corner.

The printpage class is a pure virtual class: the only way to create one is by constructing an object of a derived class.

— Function: void printpage::new_page (void);

This tells the printpage object to finish printing the current page and start a new page.

— Function: virtual void printpage::text (const string t, const dimension& x, const dimension& y, text_style::alignment a, const text_style& s);

This function places a text string on the page. The string is given in t and should consist of printable characters. The position at which the string is to be printed, measured from the bottom left corner of the page, is given by x and y. The alignment of the text about this point is given by a, and the text style is given by s.