Very strange spacing when printing a JTextArea

Question

I am trying to print text from a JTextArea and am having a very hard time at it. I am using a print utility which takes the component itself to be printed.
For instance:
If my JTextArea contains the text:
"Item: Large Caffe Mocha"
The printer will spit out something like:
"Item: Lar ge Caf f e Mocha"
Does anyone have any idea what is happening here?
Code is as follows:
public class PrintUtilities implements Printable {
  private Component componentToBePrinted;
  private boolean interactive;
  public static void printComponent(Component c, boolean interactive) {
    new PrintUtilities(c, interactive).print();
  public PrintUtilities(Component componentToBePrinted, boolean dialog) {
    this.componentToBePrinted = componentToBePrinted;
    interactive = dialog;
  public void print() {
    PrinterJob printJob = PrinterJob.getPrinterJob();
    printJob.setPrintable(this);
    if (printJob.printDialog())
      try {
        System.out.println("Calling PrintJob.print()");
        printJob.print();
        System.out.println("End PrintJob.print()");
      catch (PrinterException pe) {
        System.out.println("Error printing: " + pe);
  public int print(Graphics g, PageFormat pf, int pageIndex) {
    int response = NO_SUCH_PAGE;
    Graphics2D g2 = (Graphics2D) g;
    Dimension d = componentToBePrinted.getSize(); //get size of document
    double panelWidth = d.width; //width in pixels
    double panelHeight = d.height; //height in pixels
    double pageHeight = pf.getImageableHeight(); //height of printer page
    double pageWidth = pf.getImageableWidth(); //width of printer page
    double scale = pageWidth / panelWidth;
    int totalNumPages = (int) Math.ceil(scale * panelHeight / pageHeight);
    //  make sure not print empty pages
    if (pageIndex >= totalNumPages) {
      response = NO_SUCH_PAGE;
    else {
      //  shift Graphic to line up with beginning of print-imageable region
      g2.translate(pf.getImageableX(), pf.getImageableY());
      //  shift Graphic to line up with beginning of next page to print
      g2.translate(0f, -pageIndex * pageHeight);
      //  scale the page so the width fits...
      g2.scale(scale, scale);
      componentToBePrinted.paint(g2); //repaint the page for printing
      response = Printable.PAGE_EXISTS;
    return response;
}I am calling it as follows:
JTextArea area = new JTextArea("Large Caffe Mocha");
area.setRows(20);
area.setColumns(75);
area.setLineWrap(true);
JScrollPane pane = new JScrollPane(area);
printReceipt(area);
public void printReceipt(Component componentToBePrinted)
        PrintUtilities.printComponent(componentToBePrinted); 
}Thanks for any assistance with this problem. It is elluding me..

Answer 1

public static void printComponent(Component c, boolean interactive) {
new PrintUtilities(c, interactive).print();
printReceipt(area);
public void printReceipt(Component componentToBePrinted)
PrintUtilities.printComponent(componentToBePrinted); 
}I'm sure that this is not causing the issue and am also surprised that the compiler didn't complain, but your call to PrintUtilites.printComponent() doesn't sync up with the function you are calling. You are sending only one parameter (componentToBePrinted) and the printComponent() function is expecting two parameters: the component to be printed and a boolean value. In the code that you posted, you only had the one printComponent() function listed, with no alternative function that only accepts the component to be printed.
Having pointed this out, I'm not sure as to what is causing the issue, except that it may have something to do with your code:
//  scale the page so the width fits...
g2.scale(scale, scale);Maybe it's not really a spacing issue so much as a scaling issue. I know that on some systems, when you scale the graphics to print that are simple text, some letters will come out further apart and some will be squeezed together. I would suggest that you try commenting out your scaling code and let it print at the scale that it wants, just to see what happens.
Cheers,
Sean Carrick
PekinSOFT Systems
Edited by: PekinSOFT.Systems on Apr 16, 2009 8:27 PM