Hi Carlo ,

I have found an internal record discussing on a similar issue.

In the record, our engineer found out through Windows source code that you
can't read from a printer handle, but you can from a printer job handle. So
the trick is to create a Job using StartDocPrinter, then open a handle to
the printer job (which you can obtain by specifying the following syntax
for the printer name in OpenPrinter... "PrinterName,Job xxxx" (where xxxx
is a job id)).

Below is some test code that does this.

#define BUFSIZE 256
BOOL TestReadPrinterWithJob(LPSTR szPrinterName)
{
HANDLE hPrinter = NULL;
HANDLE hPrinterJob = NULL;
DWORD dwBytesRead;
LPVOID lpBytes = NULL;
DOC_INFO_1 dc;
DWORD jobid;
TCHAR jobStr[100];

// Open a handle to the printer.
if (!OpenPrinter(szPrinterName, &hPrinter, NULL))
{
PrintError(GetLastError(), "OpenPrinter");
return FALSE;

// We can't read from a printer handle, but we can read from
// a printer job handle, So the trick is to create a Job using
// StartDocPrinter, then open a handle to the printer job...
ZeroMemory(&dc, sizeof(DOC_INFO_1));
dc.pDocName="Dummy job";
jobid = StartDocPrinter(hPrinter,1,(LPSTR)&dc); // start a Doc
if (jobid == 0)
{
ClosePrinter(hPrinter);
PrintError(GetLastError(), "OpenPrinter");
return FALSE;

// Open handle to the printer job...
wsprintf(jobStr, "%s,Job %i", szPrinterName, jobid);
if (!OpenPrinter(jobStr, &hPrinterJob, NULL))
{
ClosePrinter(hPrinter);
PrintError(GetLastError(), "OpenPrinter Job");
return FALSE;

// Allocate a buffer to read printer data into...
lpBytes = (LPVOID)malloc(BUFSIZE);
if (!lpBytes)
{
PrintError(GetLastError(), "malloc");
ClosePrinter(hPrinter);
ClosePrinter(hPrinterJob);
return FALSE;

// Try ReadPrinter...
SetLastError(0);
if (!ReadPrinter(hPrinterJob, lpBytes, BUFSIZE, &dwBytesRead))
{
PrintError(GetLastError(), "ReadPrinter");
ClosePrinter(hPrinter);
ClosePrinter(hPrinterJob);
if (lpBytes)
free(lpBytes);
return FALSE;
else
{
printf("%i bytes successfully read by ReadPrinter (%i attempted)\n",
dwBytesRead, BUFSIZE);

// Clean up...
ClosePrinter(hPrinterJob);

EndDocPrinter(hPrinter); // end the doc
ClosePrinter(hPrinter);
if (lpBytes)
free(lpBytes);
return TRUE;

void PrintError( DWORD dwError, LPCSTR lpString )
{
#define MAX_MSG_BUF_SIZE 512
char *msgBuf;
DWORD cMsgLen;

cMsgLen = FormatMessage(FORMAT_MESSAGE_FROM_SYSTEM |
FORMAT_MESSAGE_ALLOCATE_BUFFER | 40, NULL, dwError,
MAKELANGID(0, SUBLANG_ENGLISH_US), (LPTSTR) &msgBuf, MAX_MSG_BUF_SIZE,
NULL);

printf( "%s Error [%d]:: %s\n", lpString, dwError, msgBuf );

LocalFree( msgBuf );
#undef MAX_MSG_BUF_SIZE

So, the basic components necessary are a bidi-aware language monitor (i.e.
one that implements ReadPort), the bidi checkbox checked for the printer
properties, and a printer job handle returned from OpenPrinter (which
implies that a job needs to exist).

Before you can do bidirectional printing, you'll need to have a bidi-aware
printer driver and a language monitor (both which are discussed in the DDK
(Driver Development Kit) documentation. The language monitor or port
monitor should already be using SetPrinter() and SetJob() to set the
printer and job status, which can then be read from an application with
GetPrinter() and/or GetJob(). <http://support.microsoft.com/?id=160129>
shows how to read the status, provided the monitor is setting it.

Hope this helps.

Best regards,
Jeffrey Tan
Microsoft Online Community Support

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