Having trouble printing a JTable

Question

For my french verb conjugation program I trying to include an option to print a conjugation (in table form)

However the problem is that it prints a blank box, I have read some places that this is because the table is not been visible in the GUI or something like that. The problem is I want the table to be printed without adding it to the GUI at all...

the code for the table:

JTable getPrint(String Infinitive)
{
    String [] aPresent = fetchTense(Tense.PRESENT, getID(Infinitive)).split("\n");
    String [] aPerfect = fetchTense(Tense.PERFECT, getID(Infinitive)).split("\n");
    String [] aImperfect = fetchTense(Tense.IMPERFECT, getID(Infinitive)).split("\n");
    String [] aSimpleFuture = fetchTense(Tense.SIMPLE, getID(Infinitive)).split("\n");
    String [] aConditional = fetchTense(Tense.CONDITIONAL, getID(Infinitive)).split("\n");
    String [] aColumnNames = {"Pronoun", "Present"  , "Perfect"  , "Imperfect"  , "Simple Future" , "Conditional"  };
    String [][] aValues = {
                             {"Je"     , aPresent[0], aPerfect[0], aImperfect[0], aSimpleFuture[0], aConditional[0]},
                             {"Tu"     , aPresent[1], aPerfect[1], aImperfect[1], aSimpleFuture[1], aConditional[1]},
                             {"Il"     , aPresent[2], aPerfect[2], aImperfect[2], aSimpleFuture[2], aConditional[2]},
                             {"Elle"   , aPresent[3], aPerfect[3], aImperfect[3], aSimpleFuture[3], aConditional[3]},
                             {"On"     , aPresent[4], aPerfect[4], aImperfect[4], aSimpleFuture[4], aConditional[4]},
                             {"Nous"   , aPresent[5], aPerfect[5], aImperfect[5], aSimpleFuture[5], aConditional[5]},
                             {"Vous"   , aPresent[6], aPerfect[6], aImperfect[6], aSimpleFuture[6], aConditional[6]}, 
                             {"Ils"    , aPresent[7], aPerfect[7], aImperfect[7], aSimpleFuture[7], aConditional[7]},
                             {"Elles"  , aPresent[8], aPerfect[8], aImperfect[8], aSimpleFuture[8], aConditional[8]}
                          };
    JTable pTable = new JTable(aValues, aColumnNames);
    return pTable;
}

and I want to print it with the following code:

                try 
            {
                JTable pTable = pGUI.getParser().getPrint("Aller");
                JFrame fix = new JFrame();
                fix.add(pTable);
                fix.setVisible(true);
                fix.setVisible(false);
                boolean bComplete = pTable.print(JTable.PrintMode.FIT_WIDTH, new MessageFormat(String.format("Conjugation of %s", "Aller")), new MessageFormat("Page {0}"));
                if (bComplete) 
                {
                    JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(pGUI, "Finished printing", "Printed", JOptionPane.INFORMATION_MESSAGE);
                } 
                else
                {
                    JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(pGUI, "Printing Cancelled", "Printing Cancelled", JOptionPane.WARNING_MESSAGE);
                }
            } 
            catch (PrinterException e) 
            {
                JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(pGUI, "An error has occured", "Printing Error", JOptionPane.ERROR_MESSAGE);
            }
            finally
            {
                pGUI.setCursor(Cursor.getPredefinedCursor(Cursor.DEFAULT_CURSOR));
            }

Does anybody have any idea what is going wrong here and how can I fix it?

Also as a side note, as this is a blank box I can't be sure but when it prints if a word is too long to fit in the cell will it get shorted to word... for example. And how can this be fixed?

Answer 1

1. For better help sooner, post an SSCCE , because very similair code your posted prints me correct output (to the File or paper), nobody know whats happened in important rest of your code

   possible solution_ _ __ _ __ _ __ _ __ _ __ _ __ _ __ _ __ _ __ _ __ _ __ _ __ _ __ _ __ _ __ _ __ _ __ _ __ _ __ _

2. without merging the Arrays together, create 2D array and put that as JTable(Object[][] rowData, Object[] columnNames) or JTable(String[][] rowData, String[] columnNames) , doesn't matter for testing, sure Object[][] is prepared for various data types ( Double , Date , ei not only the String ) in JTable

3. all updates must be done on EventDispatchThread

4. building for a new TopLevelContainer must be done on InitialThread

5. for both above mentioned points there is about wrapping in invokeLater

6. see JTables tutorial Printing , try working code example ( TablePrintDemo.java )

7. JTables tutorial ended with link to the lesson Printing