How do i convert a report to a PDF?

[slenish]

Hello,

I was wondering what is the best way to go about converting a report to a PDF format? Do I need to have the full version of Acrobat in order to do this or are there other ways. I keep seeing stuff about conversion programs but im not sure how reliable they are.

Anyone who has had experience with this that can shed some light would be greatly apprecited

thanks :)

[jimatqsi]

Slenish,
There are actually two very different approaches to doing this. One is to simply install a pdf print driver (Google "pdf print drivers" for a list of them) and then you can choose the pdf printer from your list of available printers just like you would choose any other printer at print time. It's very simple, just install a pdf print driver and print away. When you do that, you have to specify the destination folder and file name for the resulting pdf file by typing it into a popup box.

The other way is much more complex, but well worth the effort to set up if you want to print reports automatically to a pdf file on some schedule, as I do for one of my clients. I can't spout the process off without looking it up, so if you need more than the simple print driver method, let me know in your reply and I'll get the details for you.

You DO NOT NEED Adobe for either of these approaches. You use Adobe to read the resulting pdf file, not to create it. I use Foxit intead of Adobe (too much overhead in Adobe).

[slenish]

Hi Jim,

Appreciate the response. Thats great to hear that i dont need Adobe to do this. Going back a little bit what I want to do is not to straight print reports. I want to make it so it will save the report in to a PDF file format that way it can be later emailed or printed which ever the end user decides to do.

Now if I install a PDF printing driver will that work to automatically convert the file and save it or will it only try to print it? I figured out how to use a file format called SnapShot already which saves the file in to a snapshot similar to a PDF and then can be later opened or emailed. I would rather do a PDF format though.

Also for the user to do this they will need to have the pdf printer driver or converter installed on their system right? Im hoping I can set up the program on the network so it will just access that and work from any computer.

[jimatqsi]

The PDF printing driver will not try to output to a printer. It "prints" your document to a file. You preview the report, hit control/p and then pick the "printer" you want from the list; if you choose the pdf printer, no paper will be used, you'll just get a request to name the file and the file will be created.

Download a pdf print driver program and try it. It's very, very simple to do, just like installing a printer. Once you see how that works you'll know whether that is enough of a solution for you.

I think if you install the pdf print driver on a network computer and share it, that's all you need to do, but I'm not certain. A peer-to-peer network might work differently from joining a domain, and various versions of Windows may behave differently.

Jim