Question

How do I determine which printer is activated by a report.

Asked by: sb9

Ok That worked fine.

Know, once I fix the problem with my pdf writer I am going to revert to previous system. How do I determine whether the report prints to a pdf document or to my printer.

Cheers

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Asked On
2008-07-20 at 00:23:31ID23579831
Topics

Access Reports

,

Microsoft Access Database

,

Access Coding/Macros

Participating Experts
3
Points
500
Comments
15

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Answers

 

by: nico5038Posted on 2008-07-20 at 02:11:58ID: 22045041

In general Access will send the document to the default printer.
You can use the File/Page settings to assign a different printer, but Access sometimes has amnesia...

For steering the printer from code check these samples:
http://examples.oreilly.com/accesscook/CDROM/chap05.zip
They are from:
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/accesscook2/
and the chapter index can be found there.

Nic;o)

 

by: boag2000Posted on 2008-07-20 at 04:02:10ID: 22045244

sb9,

<In general Access will send the document to the default printer.>

So anytime you Open the Report, (In Print Preview or Design View) Access will check to see if the Printer it was associated with is the default (current) printer.
If not, you will get a message like the screenshot I have attached.

So with that in mind, I do not know if there is a way to pedict ahead of time what printer a Report is associated with.
(Since you can't open the Report to check)

JeffCoachman

 

by: sb9Posted on 2008-07-20 at 04:45:27ID: 22045389

You've shed some light on an issue that is as clear as mud. Thanks

 

by: sb9Posted on 2008-07-20 at 04:47:00ID: 22045394

Thanks

 

by: puppydogbuddyPosted on 2008-07-20 at 05:26:44ID: 22045574

Since the 2002 release of Access, the Printer objects associated with Form and Report objects support the same properties and programming techniques as the Application.Printer object. Use the Printer object of a Form or Report object when you want set or retrieve printer settings for a specific form or report. You can change form and report printer settings temporarily, or you can save those settings with the form or report. See this link for details and a downloadable demo file with source code.


http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa139946(office.10).aspx

It should be noted that since only the last setting is saved, you would have to maintain a table to track the printer used by a report on a historical basis.

 

by: boag2000Posted on 2008-07-20 at 10:11:32ID: 22046292

puppydogbuddy, nico5038,

What are you two "rouge" members doing here?
LOL.

Seriously, it is great to hear from you guys every once in a while.

What is curious to me is that I can't think of a way to tell what printer a Report is associated with ahead of time.
Which I believe is what the original question is.
So in this regard I see the askers point.

At any point in time you can select a report and want to print it.
However you dont know what printer it is associated with ahead of time.
If the report happens to be associated with a Printer that is not the default printer, you will receive the message I posted.

So, yes, you can change the printer, but then again, how would you know:
-If the printer needed to be changed in the first place.
-Which one of the multiple printers available should you use (Brother HL-2000e, or the Brother HL-2000es)
:-O

So I guess "my" question is:
Is there any way to have Access temporarily change the printer based on the printer that is assigned to the Report?
So when you click "Print", it always goes to the correctly assigned printer?

Or am I just missing something here?

JeffCoachman

 

by: nico5038Posted on 2008-07-20 at 10:34:39ID: 22046344

Hi Jeff,

Guess it's time to check the samples from the Access Cookbook.
Chapter 01 shows the retrieval of a list of installed printers and chapter 2 the setting and retrieval of the default ouput device.
Chapter 06 will show how to retrieve the report's (or form's) selected printer.

Need to know more <LOL>

Nic;o)

 

by: boag2000Posted on 2008-07-20 at 12:20:00ID: 22046624

Nic;o),

(...Reaches for Access Cookbook in bookcase)

OK, I believe that is Chapter 5 correct?
Page 227?
"Set and Retrieve the Name of the Default Output Device"
(See, ...I'm a good student)
;-)

It does not explictly say how to determine what Printer is associated with a given Report?

Hmmm...
I seem to have hijacked the original question!
LOL
;-)

Let's wait and see if sb9 has any comments on any of this.

;-)

Jeff

 

by: nico5038Posted on 2008-07-20 at 13:02:09ID: 22046743

Need to check the modules, see the basPrtDevMode function acbGetDevMode that accesses the prtDevMode property of the form/report object.

Piece of cake for you Jeff

Nic;o)

 

by: sb9Posted on 2008-07-20 at 13:15:25ID: 22046779

plenty of interesting stuff have come out of this. I am increasing the point because this question seems harder than I originally thought and so many experts to share the points.

puppydogbuddy That's a great link you send. Keep them coming.


Cheers

 

by: boag2000Posted on 2008-07-20 at 14:47:30ID: 22047111

Nic;o),

"Piece of cake for you Jeff"

ummm... OK,

...I think that piece of cake just went stale!

Enjoy the rest of the weekend!
;-)

Jeff

 

by: puppydogbuddyPosted on 2008-07-20 at 15:37:04ID: 22047241

Hi Jeff/Nico/sb9,

Just got home, and see I've missed most of the action.  Congrats to Jeff for being one of leaders on EE for this year.  Did you guys download the demo. Mdb file and also, note the following excerpt from the link I gave you.

The UseDefaultPrinter property returns a Boolean value when you read it that is True if the no changes to printer settings have been saved with the form or report, and is False if any printer setting has been saved with the form or report.

You can only set the UseDefaultPrinter property when a form or report is open in Design View. The following code fragment from the ClearFormReportSettings procedure in the PrinterDemo.mdb sample download opens each of the reports in the current project and clears any report that has saved settings

 

by: boag2000Posted on 2008-07-26 at 06:20:42ID: 22094957

puppydogbuddy,

"Congrats to Jeff for being one of leaders on EE for this year."
Thanks!
Well with Experts like you and Nico not being so active here anymore, it's easy!
;-)

Great sample,

But I am still curious to know if you can get a listing of all Reports *and* what printer they are associated with.

I did not see a clear way to do that in the sample.

Or did I miss something?

Jeff

 

by: puppydogbuddyPosted on 2008-07-26 at 06:31:14ID: 22094987

hi Jeff,
See comment from my first post:
             
It should be noted that since only the last setting is saved, you would have to maintain a table to track the printer used by a report on a historical basis.

 

by: nico5038Posted on 2008-07-26 at 07:00:16ID: 22095079

Hi Jeff,

Check: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa173221(office.11).aspx
Guess creating a loop through the application's reports/forms is a piece of cake for you <LOL>

Nic;o)

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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