asked on

Access report - pdf differs from direct print

I'm struggling with a label report in Access - A4, 2-column, 105mm x 74mm, no margins. Everything line up nicely when printed directly - when using the built-in PDF export, it's like some margins are Applied and everything is no long in its place when printed from the pdf - I've done numerous Little adjustments to try and correct it, but with no luck so far. Please advice :) It's the same result when run from another system.

DoCmd.OutputTo acOutputReport, rpt, "PDF Format (*.pdf)", strPDFTmp, False

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Scott McDaniel (EE MVE )

Most likely has to do with the PDF software you're using. Most of them will format a document using their standards/defaults, and you may not be able to change them. If you want full control over this, you'd have to automate the PDF process, which means you'd have to use something like the full version of Adobe, or Nuance, or some other package that allows automation.

By the way, what's the reason for printing labels to PDF?

Mik Mak

ASKER

That would be disappointing as using the PDF "printer" one would assumme it was like the paper print-out :)

The labels are sent via email to customers for printing onsite

Scott McDaniel (EE MVE )

There are several free PDF printers out there. Perhaps try using a different one and see if you have different results.

Mik Mak

ASKER

It's the Office built-in pdf conversion I use

Bill Prew

For the Report involved, have you tried varying the "FitToPage" setting to see if that has an effect on the output PDF?

»bp

Mik Mak

ASKER

Hi Bill, yes I have, and no it doesn't :)

Scott McDaniel (EE MVE )

It's the Office built-in pdf conversion I use

Sure, but you can try printing directly to a PDF printer instead:

'/ first capture the current printer:
Dim pnt As Printer
Set pnt = Application.Printer
'/ now set the default printer to your PDF printer and print the report:
Application.Printer = Application.Printers("YourPDFPrinter")
DoCmd.OpenReport "YourReport"
'/ now reset the default printer:
Application.Printer = pnt

Mik Mak

ASKER

Good idea Scott, but I've just tried it, and theres no major difference in the result unfortunately

Scott McDaniel (EE MVE )

Have you tried with a different PDF printer?

What, exactly, is the trouble with the PDF output?

Mik Mak

ASKER

It's been tried with CutePDF which is on the customer RDS, and "PDF reDirect Pro v2" which is on my local test system.

Even though the report page is defined with A4, 2-column, 105mm x 74mm, no margins - when generating the pdf, the top/bottom margins change, so that the print is not positioned correct vertically/column-wise - ie the top margin on each label on the page gets lower the further down you get on the page

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