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sah18Flag for United States of America

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Access 2003: How to print a BLANK form (including subforms)?

I have an empty database that is still in development.  There are currently no records in any of the tables.  I would like to print out a blank version of all the forms that I've created so far (showing labels, textboxes, etc).  When I open the form and do a print preview, none of the form is showing up (except for the form header -- none of the Detail section appears).  What is the best way to go about printing blank forms?  I don't want to have to add in data for all of these (over a hundred) tables, just to print a form.  Also, I did notice that even when I did enter data for a form (just the required fields), none of the subforms (again, there are many - several per form) showed up either until at least one record was added to each of them.

The other thing I did try was to save the form as a report, but the problem with that method was that none of the subforms showed up on the report, so that won't work.  I need all of the forms and all of the subforms (all blank) to appear on the printout.

I'd be open to any of the following, if they are possible (using third-party software would be fine with me also):
- print the blank form to a pdf file (I do own the full version of Acrobat)
- convert the form to a jpg file.
- print it right from access, if possible
- any other suggestions at all that would let me print out all these blank forms!

Thanks for your help.
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SiJP

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It's an option, but it would be incredibly time-consuming and messy (trying to piece together the forms from several screenshots - most of the forms are longer than one screenshot).  I'm hoping for being able to print the form as a "whole", if at all possible.
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mike1086

" How to print a BLANK form (including subforms)?"

1) Open your BLANK form
2) Wave hands in front of screen in an eerie manner
3) Speak the MAGIC WORDS....."allakhazam BLANK form"
4) Go to printer.
5) You will find your printed BLANK form at the bottom of the print tray


sah18 ,

make the form popup modal.

ALT+ PRINT SCREEN

and copy paste into WORD

You can then scale the size if it won't fit into paintbrush or some other package.
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ASKER

This has the same problem as the first recommendation.  I have forms that have vertical scrollbars -- meaning that not all of the form is visible on the screen at any one time.  So, a form may have 50 questions on it, but you can only see 10 questions on the screen at any one time.  both print screen suggestions still only capture what is visible on the screen (I still had this same problem when I set modal=yes, popup=yes).  I would need to do 5 screenshots just for this single form -- and there are over a hundred forms in this database.  I'm looking for a way to print each form in its entirety (without having to piece together separate screenshots in the end).  Any other suggestions??  It seems like there must be a way to do this...
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I need to printed forms to be completely blank (with no data in any of the fields).
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This is quite a module you've written!  Now, is it able to capture the entire form, or just what is visible on the screen at one time?  Thanks for sharing this code.
>>is it able to capture the entire form, or just what is visible on the screen at one time
Everything on screen.
It works similarly to the PrintScrn button.

>>This is quite a module you've written
I'd love to claim it as completely my own - but that would be a lie...
I was given part of it and I altered it to suit my needs.
Normally, I'd never use SendKeys (it's evil).
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ASKER

Thanks for your suggestion, but I'm still hoping for a way to print the blank form in its entirety.  If anyone else has any suggestions, I'd very much like to hear them.
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ASKER

I actually found a solution to my problem!  I found a great little screen capture utility that is able to capture an entire active window, even it doesn't all appear on the screen (they call it scrolling window, as the capture software will scroll to capture the window in its entirety).  It is not free, but there is a 30-day trial at the following link:
http://www.techsmith.com/download/freetrials.asp
The product is called SnagIt and it is by TechSmith.
Very nice indeed!

Even though I found my own solution, I am going to award split points for all your suggestions.  Just realizing there was not a built-in way to print these blank forms helped get me on the right track of what to search for.  Thanks again.