#256 – Use a FixedDocument to Display Content at Fixed Locations
March 25, 2011 2 Comments
Where FlowDocument allows displaying content that flows automatically from page to page, FixedDocument allows displaying multiple pages of content in a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) format. You add content to the document page by page, and specify exactly where each piece of content should be located.
The FixedDocument includes a series of PageContent elements, each of which contains a FixedPage element.
<FixedDocument> <PageContent> <!-- 7" x 9" page --> <FixedPage Width="672" Height="864"> <StackPanel Orientation="Vertical" FixedPage.Left="280" FixedPage.Top="150"> <Label FontFamily="Arial" FontWeight="Bold" FontSize="18" Content="Jane Eyre" HorizontalAlignment="Center"/> <Label FontFamily="Arial" FontStyle="Italic" FontSize="14" Content="Charlotte Brontë" HorizontalAlignment="Center"/> </StackPanel> </FixedPage> </PageContent> <PageContent> <FixedPage Width="672" Height="864"> <StackPanel Margin="48"> <TextBlock FontFamily="Cambria" FontSize="14" Width="576" TextWrapping="Wrap"> There was no possibility etc. </TextBlock> <TextBlock FontFamily="Cambria" FontSize="14" Width="576" TextWrapping="Wrap" Margin="0,25,0,0"> I was glad of it etc. </TextBlock> <Image Margin="0,25,0,0" Source="Twilight.jpg" /> </StackPanel> </FixedPage> </PageContent> </FixedDocument>
The document shows up in a default viewer. Here’s page 1:
And page 2:
About Sean
2,000 Things You Should Know About WPF 
Can you give me hint, how I can load your example fixeddocument XAML, so that I can finally print it?
I saved your example as XAML File and tried loading it with the following code:
FixedDocument document;
using (FileStream fs = new FileStream(“PrintTemplate.xaml”, FileMode.Open))
{
document = (FixedDocument)XamlReader.Load(fs);
}
But I can’t compile it because I get the following error:
“The tag ‘FixedDocument’ does not exist in XML namespace”
Thanks!
This is a XAML fragment that would be part of larger XAML file, e.g. representing a Window in a WPF project. You wouldn’t load the XAML into a FileStream, but render the elements by showing the corresponding WPF window.