ACC2000: How to Capture Screen Shots of Your Forms

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Summary

You can use Microsoft Windows API functions to capture screen shots of any object on the Windows desktop. You can capture screen shots of the Access user interface, Access objects, other Windows applications, or the entire desktop.

Microsoft provides programming examples for illustration only, without warranty either expressed or implied. This includes, but is not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. This article assumes that you are familiar with the programming language that is being demonstrated and with the tools that are used to create and to debug procedures. Microsoft support engineers can help explain the functionality of a particular procedure, but they will not modify these examples to provide added functionality or construct procedures to meet your specific requirements.

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The following sample Visual Basic for Applications code captures an object on the screen in the Clipboard. Note that you can change the handle, AccessHwnd, in the sample code below to create screen shots of other applications, including specific objects within Access.

After capturing a screen shot, you can open Paint (MSPaint.exe) and click the Paste command on the Edit menu. The screen shot from Access then appears in Paint as an image.

To run this code, call the ScreenDump() function from an event, a macro, or the module's Debug window. To run ScreenDump() from the Immediate window, type the following, and then press ENTER:

?ScreenDump()

To set up the ScreenDump() function, open a new or existing module and type or paste the following code.

NOTE: You may have some Microsoft Windows API functions defined in an existing Microsoft Access library; therefore, your declarations may be duplicates. If you receive a duplicate procedure name error message, remove or comment out the declarations statement in your code.

Option Compare Database
Option Explicit

Type RECT_Type

   left As Long
   top As Long
   right As Long
   bottom As Long

End Type

'The following declare statements are case sensitive.

Declare Function GetActiveWindow Lib "User32" () As Long
Declare Function GetDesktopWindow Lib "User32" () As Long
Declare Sub GetWindowRect Lib "User32" (ByVal Hwnd As Long, _
                                    lpRect As RECT_Type)
Declare Function GetDC Lib "User32" (ByVal Hwnd As Long) As Long
Declare Function CreateCompatibleDC Lib "Gdi32" (ByVal hdc As Long) _
                                    As Long
Declare Function CreateCompatibleBitmap Lib "Gdi32" (ByVal hdc _
                                    As Long, ByVal nWidth As Long, _
                                    ByVal nHeight As Long) As Long
Declare Function SelectObject Lib "Gdi32" (ByVal hdc As Long, _
                                    ByVal hObject As Long) As Long
Declare Function BitBlt Lib "Gdi32" (ByVal hDestDC As Long, _
                                    ByVal X As Long, ByVal Y _
                                    As Long, ByVal nWidth As Long, _
                                    ByVal nHeight As Long, _
                                    ByVal hSrcDC As Long, _
                                    ByVal XSrc As Long, _
                                    ByVal YSrc As Long, _
                                    ByVal dwRop As Long) As Long
Declare Function OpenClipboard Lib "User32" (ByVal Hwnd As Long) As Long
Declare Function EmptyClipboard Lib "User32" () As Long
Declare Function SetClipboardData Lib "User32" (ByVal wFormat As Long, _
                                    ByVal hMem As Long) As Long
Declare Function CloseClipboard Lib "User32" () As Long
Declare Function ReleaseDC Lib "User32" (ByVal Hwnd As Long, _
                                    ByVal hdc As Long) As Long
Declare Function DeleteDC Lib "Gdi32" (ByVal hdc As Long) As Long

Global Const SRCCOPY = &HCC0020
Global Const CF_BITMAP = 2

Type the following function in the General section of the module:

Function ScreenDump()
   Dim AccessHwnd As Long, DeskHwnd As Long
   Dim hdc As Long
   Dim hdcMem As Long
   Dim rect As RECT_Type
   Dim junk As Long
   Dim fwidth As Long, fheight As Long
   Dim hBitmap As Long

   DoCmd.Hourglass True

   '---------------------------------------------------
   ' Get window handle to Windows and Microsoft Access
   '---------------------------------------------------
   DeskHwnd = GetDesktopWindow()
   AccessHwnd = GetActiveWindow()

   '---------------------------------------------------
   ' Get screen coordinates of Microsoft Access
   '---------------------------------------------------
   Call GetWindowRect(AccessHwnd, rect)
   fwidth = rect.right - rect.left
   fheight = rect.bottom - rect.top

   '---------------------------------------------------
   ' Get the device context of Desktop and allocate memory
   '---------------------------------------------------
   hdc = GetDC(DeskHwnd)
   hdcMem = CreateCompatibleDC(hdc)
   hBitmap = CreateCompatibleBitmap(hdc, fwidth, fheight)

   If hBitmap <> 0 Then
      junk = SelectObject(hdcMem, hBitmap)

      '---------------------------------------------
      ' Copy the Desktop bitmap to memory location
      ' based on Microsoft Access coordinates.
      '---------------------------------------------
      junk = BitBlt(hdcMem, 0, 0, fwidth, fheight, hdc, rect.left, _
                    rect.top, SRCCOPY)

      '---------------------------------------------
      ' Set up the Clipboard and copy bitmap
      '---------------------------------------------
      junk = OpenClipboard(DeskHwnd)
      junk = EmptyClipboard()
      junk = SetClipboardData(CF_BITMAP, hBitmap)
      junk = CloseClipboard()
   End If

   '---------------------------------------------
   ' Clean up handles
   '---------------------------------------------
   junk = DeleteDC(hdcMem)
   junk = ReleaseDC(DeskHwnd, hdc)

   DoCmd.Hourglass False

End Function

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