Printer and Printing Tips

Recently, there seems to be several questions specifically related to Printers and changing Printing characteristics for Forms and Reports. For this reason alone, I decided to dedicate this week's Tip to these Topics. The Tip will actually consist of several Tips which I feel are very useful for all Users, from Newbies to Experts. In order to utilize the code contained within these Tips, you must have Access 2002 or later.

1. How can I generate a List of available Printers?
   
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   1. 'Prints a list of available Printers and thier Ports
   2. 'to the Immediate Window
   3. Dim prn As Printer
   4.  
   5. For Each prn In Application.Printers
   6.   Debug.Print prn.DeviceName & " on " & prn.Port
   7. Next prn
2. How can I find the characteristics of the current Window's Default Printer?
   
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   1. 'Lists specific characteristics of the Current Printer
   2. With Application.Printer
   3.   Debug.Print "Current Printer   : " & .DeviceName
   4.   Debug.Print "Device Driver Name: " & .DriverName
   5.   Debug.Print "Port Assignment   : " & .Port
   6. End With
3. How do I fill a Combo Box with a list of Installed Printers?
   
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   1. 'Fills a Combo Box with a list of Installed Printers
   2. Dim prn As Printer, cbo As ComboBox
   3. Dim strText As String
   4.  
   5. Set cbo = Me![cboPrinters]
   6.  
   7. 'Clear the control's list.
   8. cbo.RowSource = vbNullString
   9. cbo.RowSourceType = "Value List"
   10.  
   11. 'Set up three columns
   12. cbo.ColumnCount = 3
   13. cbo.ColumnWidths = "3in;1in;1in"
   14. cbo.Width = 5 * 1440    '5 inches (measured in Twips)
   15.  
   16.  
   17. 'Bind to the DeviceName column (1)
   18. cbo.BoundColumn = 1
   19.  
   20. For Each prn In Application.Printers
   21.   strText = prn.DeviceName & ";" & prn.DriverName & _
   22.             ";" & prn.Port
   23.   cbo.AddItem strText
   24. Next prn
4. How do I change the Default Printer?
   
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   1. 'Changes the Default Printer, then resets it to the original Printer.
   2. 'This will only work if the report is set up to Print to the Default
   3. 'Printer
   4.  
   5. Set Application.Printer = Application.Printers("Acrobat PDFWriter")
   6.   DoCmd.OpenReport "<Your Report Name>", acViewNormal, , , acWindowNormal
   7.  
   8. 'Reset the Default Printer back to the way it was
   9. Set Application.Printer = Nothing
5. How do I print a Report to a specific device?
   
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   1. 'The following code will Print rptInvoices to the Acrobat PFDWriter Printer
   2. Dim rpt As Report
   3.  
   4. DoCmd.OpenReport "rptInvoices", View:=acViewPreview, WindowMode:=acHidden
   5.  
   6. Set rpt = Reports("rptInvoices")
   7. Set rpt.Printer = Application.Printers("Acrobat PFDWriter")
   8.  
   9. DoCmd.OpenReport "rptInvoices"
   10. DoCmd.Close acReport, "rptInvoices"
6. How can I modify Printer characteristics for a Form or Report?
   
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   1. 'Open rptInvoices in Design view, change 3 of its Properties
   2. 'Print the report, and then close the report.
   3.  
   4. Const conReport As String = "rptInvoices"
   5.  
   6. DoCmd.OpenReport conReport, View:=acViewPreview, WindowMode:=acHidden
   7.  
   8. 'Force the printer to look to the upper bin for paper, print on
   9. 'Monarch-size envelopes, and Print two copies, set orientation to
   10. 'Landscape
   11. With Reports(conReport).Printer
   12.   .PaperBin = acPRBNUpper
   13.   .PaperSize = acPRPSEnvMonarch
   14.   .Copies = 2
   15.   .Orientation = acPRORLandscape
   16.   .Duplex = acPRDPVertical
   17.   .PrintQuality = acPRPQMedium
   18. End With
   19.  
   20. 'Now print the report.
   21. DoCmd.OpenReport conReport
   22. DoCmd.Close acReport, conReport
7. How do I change the Layout characteristics for a Form or Report?
   
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   1. Const conReport As String = "rptInvoices"
   2. Const conTwipsPerInch As Long = 1440
   3.  
   4. DoCmd.OpenReport conReport, View:=acViewPreview, WindowMode:=acHidden
   5.  
   6. 'Modify layout information. set up margins, columns, and
   7. 'print only data.
   8. With Reports(conReport).Printer
   9.   .LeftMargin = 0.5 * conTwipsPerInch
   10.   .RightMargin = 0.5 * conTwipsPerInch
   11.   .TopMargin = 1 * conTwipsPerInch
   12.   .BottomMargin = 1 * conTwipsPerInch
   13.   .ItemsAcross = 2
   14.   .ItemLayout = acPRHorizontalColumnLayout
   15.   .DefaultSize = False
   16.   .ItemSizeWidth = 3 * conTwipsPerInch
   17.   .ColumnSpacing = 0.1 * conTwipsPerInch
   18.   .DataOnly = True
   19. End With
   20.  
   21. DoCmd.OpenReport conReport
   22. DoCmd.Close acReport, conReport

re: Printer and Printing Tips

I'm Immaculata
Thanks for what you just wrote, i got some help from here. But i'm currently working on a program for a school. My problem is tabularizing the results of my recordsets. i.e. I created a recordset, it got the data from the database and i want to print the output in a tabular form. Please how do i do this?

re: Printer and Printing Tips

I'm not exactly sure of what you are looking for, but this code will write the First Name, Last Name, and Address Fields of an Employees Table to a Text File (Recordset.txt) in the C:\Test\ Directory. The data will be Tabular and neatly formatted.
OUTPUT:

re: Printer and Printing Tips

hi

i have a problem when i want to print the following message comes up: can't print or preview the page because the page size you selected is larger than 22.75 inches - any one can help me please

re: Printer and Printing Tips

What exactly are you trying to Print?