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scottvandenberg

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Access report export: colors lost in HTML (and Word)

I have an Access2000 report with some colored text (the coloring is added via conditional formatting of a text box).  When I export the report to an HTML file, the colors are lost and the text comes out black.  How can I make the colors show up without post-processing the resulting HTML file?    Or, if it must be post-processed, any hints for how to do that would be appreciated (I've been trying to avoid VB/VBA in this project for a variety of reasons, but I'll bite the bullet if I have to in order to work around this "feature").

Using a different output format (e.g. PDF) is not an option for this appliacation; it has to be HTML (I tried using Word as an intermediate format, but the colors are lost when going to Word also, and it has other bad features as an intermediate format in this case anyway).

Thanks in advance for your help.
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Gal_atea

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Here's one link you look at, though I'm not sure it relates directly to your problem:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;209145

The article implies that a large part of report formatting will not carry over to an export.
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scottvandenberg

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Thanks for the suggestions so far.

Gal_atea, I just tried exporting (actually, you have to "print" it to a file) to PDF 6.0, then from PDF the "save as HTML" option.  Colors are preserved (this is good -- thanks for the suggestion!), but nearly all the formatting was lost (this is not good!).  To be perfectly clear:  the formatting was preserved in the translation from report to PDF, but lost in the translation from PDF to HTML.   I may have to just export it to HTML from Access and edit the HTML files to put the colors back in.  

Is this just how Adobe's HTML translator "works"?  Their documentation says little, but it seems like shabby behavior for software that isn't cheap.

If anyone can make further suggestions, I'd be grateful.
Another option would be to create an ASP-style routine in VB to export the report manually.  Granted, this would be mega-coding, but you'd only have to do it once.  :)
Yeah, I guess Acrobat isn't designed to export to HTML, but to print, so it's probably an Acrobat issue. Sorry it's not going to work for you.
OK, so it seems like the proper solution to my question is to conver to PDF from Access, as suggested by Gal_atea (assuming one has Acrobat installed).  But to get it from PDF to HTML, Acrobat's PDF-to-HTML translation loses nearly all formatting and it looks horrible.  So instead, I tried a shareware (I think) program called PDF2HTML (from "verypdf.com"), and that preserved both color and formatting when translating PDF to HTML.

So, unless I hear other better ideas soon, I'd like to Accept the first half of Gal_atea's solution, but replace the second half with "get a real PDF to HTML converter instead of Adobe's".  This is my first post to this forum -- any suggestions how to accept part of a solution?  Should I split the points between Gal_atea and me?

Thanks again; I will wait until sometime next week to close this out.
I'd say award to Gal_atea since her solution led you to a workable method.  Your part of the answer will still be stored with the PAQ, so others who see it will know what happened.  If you would like to reduce the amount of points awarded for this question, you will need to post a request in the Community Support TA, available at this link:

https://www.experts-exchange.com/Community_Support/

If you would like to review the guidelines for grading and closing questions, here's the direct link to the appropriate help section.  Remove the "#hs5" if you want to see all the help topics.

https://www.experts-exchange.com/help.jsp#hs5

Good luck with the rest of your project!
Thanks for the points, scottvandenberg.

Gal_atea