MS Access Report to PDF

Hello All,

I have been doing quite a bit of research in this group and have not
been able to find the answer that I am looking for.

Here is my issue. We currently have Adobe Acrobat v5 installed on our
system (under Windows 2000 Professional). Currently, we are using MS
Access 2000. Early next year we will be moving to Windows XP (probably
converting to MS Access XP as well) and have been told that Adobe
Acrobat v6 is to be installed as the new standard. Oh yeah - they have
also told us NO to having Acrobat v5 installed. This means that we will
no longer have access to PDF Writer, which we currently utilise to
generate PDF documents from reports. PDF Distiller apparently is
replaced with PDF Print (if memory serves me well). I have tried
working with PDF Distiller and have not had any success, very messy,
unlike PDF Writer.

My question for the group is; does any know how I am will be able to
generate PDF documents from MS Access 2000/XP without PDF writer using
Adobe Acrobat v6 PDF print? Oh yeah - third party tools (other then MS
Office and Adobe Acrobat v6 standards) are a NO NO, for example Win2PDF
etc.

Does anyone have any suggestions? Has anyone been able to PDF Print to
work from VBA?

Please note: I'd rather not get into creating SNP (snapshot views)
since we send our documents externally at times).

Thank-you all, in advance, for your time and attention to this
matter...

Regards,
Dave

We have a full version of Acrobat. I used something else simpler than
Acrobat to program. It is pdf995. On their site, there are examples for
developers in VBA.

http://www.freeware995.com/misc/vbacode.txt

"DGB @ Sun" <David.Bettencourt@SunLife.com> wrote in message
news:1129318247.348379.119950@g47g2000cwa.googlegr oups.com...[color=blue]
> Hello All,
>
> I have been doing quite a bit of research in this group and have not
> been able to find the answer that I am looking for.
>
> Here is my issue. We currently have Adobe Acrobat v5 installed on our
> system (under Windows 2000 Professional). Currently, we are using MS
> Access 2000. Early next year we will be moving to Windows XP (probably
> converting to MS Access XP as well) and have been told that Adobe
> Acrobat v6 is to be installed as the new standard. Oh yeah - they have
> also told us NO to having Acrobat v5 installed. This means that we will
> no longer have access to PDF Writer, which we currently utilise to
> generate PDF documents from reports. PDF Distiller apparently is
> replaced with PDF Print (if memory serves me well). I have tried
> working with PDF Distiller and have not had any success, very messy,
> unlike PDF Writer.
>
> My question for the group is; does any know how I am will be able to
> generate PDF documents from MS Access 2000/XP without PDF writer using
> Adobe Acrobat v6 PDF print? Oh yeah - third party tools (other then MS
> Office and Adobe Acrobat v6 standards) are a NO NO, for example Win2PDF
> etc.
>
> Does anyone have any suggestions? Has anyone been able to PDF Print to
> work from VBA?
>
> Please note: I'd rather not get into creating SNP (snapshot views)
> since we send our documents externally at times).
>
> Thank-you all, in advance, for your time and attention to this
> matter...
>
> Regards,
> Dave
>[/color]

"Saintor" <saintor1@REMOVETHIShotmail.com> wrote in
news:hC84f.30648$Tn2.628750@weber.videotron.net:
[color=blue]
> We have a full version of Acrobat. I used something else simpler
> than Acrobat to program. It is pdf995. On their site, there are
> examples for developers in VBA.
>
> http://www.freeware995.com/misc/vbacode.txt[/color]

Wow, that's ugly code.

I'd suggest replacing the hardwired All Users reference with the
environment variable ALLUSERSPROFILE, for one.

The code also reminds me of PDF995's poor behavior in insisting that
install itself in the root of your C: drive. That's *extremely* bad
design for an application designed to run under any NT-based version
of Windows other than NT 4 itself, since by default, the root of C:
is read-only accessible to users.

I use PPF995, but this one thing is very, very poorly implemented.

--
David W. Fenton http://www.bway.net/~dfenton
dfenton at bway dot net http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

I too have struggled with the automated conversion of a report to PDF.
I finally ended up automating snapshot outputs and then converting
those to PDF...

Even if it is ugly (or may be not), if it works and is reliable...who cares?

..
[color=blue]
> Wow, that's ugly code.
>
> I'd suggest replacing the hardwired All Users reference with the
> environment variable ALLUSERSPROFILE, for one.
>
> The code also reminds me of PDF995's poor behavior in insisting that
> install itself in the root of your C: drive. That's *extremely* bad
> design for an application designed to run under any NT-based version
> of Windows other than NT 4 itself, since by default, the root of C:
> is read-only accessible to users.
>
> I use PPF995, but this one thing is very, very poorly implemented.
>
> --
> David W. Fenton http://www.bway.net/~dfenton
> dfenton at bway dot net http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc[/color]

"Saintor" <saintor1@REMOVETHIShotmail.com> wrote in
news:yQv4f.7654$UV2.135924@wagner.videotron.net:
[color=blue]
> Even if it is ugly (or may be not), if it works and is
> reliable...who cares?[/color]

Ugliness in code generally indicates to me that:

1. there are design problems that necessitate the ugliness, AND

2. it's a maintenance problem, particularly with hardwired paths.

When I see ugly code provided by a 3rd party, it makes me think
"Hmm, looks like this was not written by someone who knows too much
about conventions for programming in this particular language." and
that makes me suspect the code overall.

It may very well work.

It may very well be the best code that can be used to accomplish the
task.

And I might very well use it.

But I still would feel uncomfortable about it.

--
David W. Fenton http://www.bway.net/~dfenton
dfenton at bway dot net http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

Hi Nick,

Thank you very much for your input...
I looked into this option as well but was unclear on how to convert SNP
to PDF. Do you have any suggestions and/or code?

Thanks again Nick...

Regards,
Dave

Hi David and Saintor,

Thank-you both for your input...
Saintor, I will look into this code more carefully. Although I am very
interested in Nick's suggestion, i.e. the conversion from SNP to PDF.
Any case, I open to all suggestions. Fact of the matter all, what was
Adobe thinking? You would think a company would want to retain
functionality that promotes their product ?!? Such is life...

Dave

[color=blue]
> Thank you very much for your input...
> I looked into this option as well but was unclear on how to convert SNP
> to PDF. Do you have any suggestions and/or code?[/color]

Once Acrobat is installed, I believe you can just right-click the
Snapshot file and choose 'Convert to PDF.'

I didn't have any luck automating this process with VBA.

Hi Nick,

Thanks for your quick response...
I, unfortunately, don't get the option 'Convert to PDF' when I right
click on the file. In any case, I would have to implement something
that converts the file through code.

Thanks for your time...

Regards,
Dave

I have a solution I will be posting this weekend hopefully. It converts
Reports or Snapshots to PDF documents. The Snapshot file is comprised of
Enhanced Metafiles(EMF), one for each page of the report. Each EMF is
comprised of records that render the elements of the output page.
I purchased a developer's license for a third party PDF library. It has the
capability to convert the records of an EMF file to their PDf counterparts.
This is a one to one mapping of Metafile to PDF records. The resultant PDF
document is as fully editable as any normal PDF doc. The developer of the
library has kindly consented to allow me to redistribute his library in my
Freeware solution.

This solution is comprised of an MDE file and the PDF library DLL. It's a
standard Windows DLL, not an ActiveX DLL so no registration is required. No
printer driver is required therefore the solution will work even on desktops
locked down by corporate IT.

If you want, send me an Email and I'll forward you a Beta for you test. I
have tested it on more than 40 reports where it has converted perfectly but
it's time to broaden the tests.
My Email address is:
myfirstname@mylastname.com

--

HTH
Stephen Lebans
http://www.lebans.com
Access Code, Tips and Tricks
Please respond only to the newsgroups so everyone can benefit.

"DGB @ Sun" <David.Bettencourt@SunLife.com> wrote in message
news:1129496657.215822.223110@g14g2000cwa.googlegr oups.com...[color=blue]
> Hi Nick,
>
> Thanks for your quick response...
> I, unfortunately, don't get the option 'Convert to PDF' when I right
> click on the file. In any case, I would have to implement something
> that converts the file through code.
>
> Thanks for your time...
>
> Regards,
> Dave
>[/color]

What about CutePDF Writer - http://www.cutepdf.com/ a shareware utility
(with a freeware version) that installs itself to look like an optional
printer?

On 14 Oct 2005 12:30:47 -0700, "DGB @ Sun" <David.Bettencourt@SunLife.com>
wrote:
[color=blue]
>Hello All,
>
>I have been doing quite a bit of research in this group and have not
>been able to find the answer that I am looking for.
>
>Here is my issue. We currently have Adobe Acrobat v5 installed on our
>system (under Windows 2000 Professional). Currently, we are using MS
>Access 2000. Early next year we will be moving to Windows XP (probably
>converting to MS Access XP as well) and have been told that Adobe
>Acrobat v6 is to be installed as the new standard. Oh yeah - they have
>also told us NO to having Acrobat v5 installed. This means that we will
>no longer have access to PDF Writer, which we currently utilise to
>generate PDF documents from reports. PDF Distiller apparently is
>replaced with PDF Print (if memory serves me well). I have tried
>working with PDF Distiller and have not had any success, very messy,
>unlike PDF Writer.
>
>My question for the group is; does any know how I am will be able to
>generate PDF documents from MS Access 2000/XP without PDF writer using
>Adobe Acrobat v6 PDF print? Oh yeah - third party tools (other then MS
>Office and Adobe Acrobat v6 standards) are a NO NO, for example Win2PDF
>etc.
>
>Does anyone have any suggestions? Has anyone been able to PDF Print to
>work from VBA?
>
>Please note: I'd rather not get into creating SNP (snapshot views)
>since we send our documents externally at times).
>
>Thank-you all, in advance, for your time and attention to this
>matter...
>
>Regards,
>Dave[/color]

There are some problems printing to it programmatically: I don't believe
it's possible without some user interaction. However, PDF995
http://www.pdf995.com does support automation.

Of course, David did say no third part products.

--
Doug Steele, Microsoft Access MVP
http://I.Am/DougSteele
(no e-mails, please!)

<lorendi@internet.com> wrote in message
news:gsasn1t2cu5srptsgr26t3pkgiut0o8jgn@4ax.com...
What about CutePDF Writer - http://www.cutepdf.com/ a shareware utility
(with a freeware version) that installs itself to look like an optional
printer?

On 14 Oct 2005 12:30:47 -0700, "DGB @ Sun" <David.Bettencourt@SunLife.com>
wrote:
[color=blue]
>Hello All,
>
>I have been doing quite a bit of research in this group and have not
>been able to find the answer that I am looking for.
>
>Here is my issue. We currently have Adobe Acrobat v5 installed on our
>system (under Windows 2000 Professional). Currently, we are using MS
>Access 2000. Early next year we will be moving to Windows XP (probably
>converting to MS Access XP as well) and have been told that Adobe
>Acrobat v6 is to be installed as the new standard. Oh yeah - they have
>also told us NO to having Acrobat v5 installed. This means that we will
>no longer have access to PDF Writer, which we currently utilise to
>generate PDF documents from reports. PDF Distiller apparently is
>replaced with PDF Print (if memory serves me well). I have tried
>working with PDF Distiller and have not had any success, very messy,
>unlike PDF Writer.
>
>My question for the group is; does any know how I am will be able to
>generate PDF documents from MS Access 2000/XP without PDF writer using
>Adobe Acrobat v6 PDF print? Oh yeah - third party tools (other then MS
>Office and Adobe Acrobat v6 standards) are a NO NO, for example Win2PDF
>etc.
>
>Does anyone have any suggestions? Has anyone been able to PDF Print to
>work from VBA?
>
>Please note: I'd rather not get into creating SNP (snapshot views)
>since we send our documents externally at times).
>
>Thank-you all, in advance, for your time and attention to this
>matter...
>
>Regards,
>Dave[/color]