EBME Forums Forums Maintenance Biomed Databases Calling Access Gurus!

Quite a complex task, not sure if is possible:-

I am in the middle of writing an access module to automatically print to a PDF file, save the result (for paperless), and e-mail a recipient.

This is part of a planned maintenance reporting system.

Currently, our system rolls through a series of reports (automatically) and prints them as they do not have similar data. i.e report1, report2, report3, report4, report5, report6, etc.

What I am trying to do for the purposes of the pdf file (virtual printer) is to create a single report as a container to house all these subreports 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 etc.

That way, a single report could be executed and dumped to the printer containing our complete planned maintenance report, questionaires, response sheets etc.

I have read up a little on adding sub reports to a blank unbound report in order to acheive this but dont seems to be making any headway at all.

Alternatively i may be faced with lots of little pdf files per service visit.

*note* exporting and appending to word documents is not an option due to the logos, graphics and lines in use in the reports.

Anyone this savvy?

Regards
Joe

If you don't know Joe, I'm not sure there is anyone who will!

Richie

Its not a hard one for someone who may have done it before. Completely unrelated to my little project, but still a PIA and minor buggerance if I cant do it the way I wanted.

Just wondering if anyone had combined a series of smaller reports into one single 'master' report that could be printed.

What I've read so far I've got confused on!

There are 2 mailing lists specifically for access

AccessD and Access-L

AccessD regularly goes way OT and is high volume, Access-L is again high volume but is VERY good.


To subscribe to accessD send an e-mail to

accessd@databaseadvisors.com

containing

Subscribe AccessD xxxxx

(where xxxxx is your name)


To subscribe to Access-L send an e-mail to

listserv@peach.ease.lsoft.com

containing

SUB ACCESS-L xxxxx

(where xxxxx is your name)

Hope this helps

Dave

Joe try this site http://www.mvps.org/access/reports/rpt0011.htm, it might help.

Corrected the url as the original was faulty.

Thanks Steve / Gee Bee - unfortunately we dont have the PDF writer virtual printer installed

The CUTEPDF driver that we use only supports printing of an individual document at a time, wheras the PDFWRITER one will allow you to print multiple reports to a single PDF file, then close it off.

Hence why I was looking at combining multiple reports as "sub reports" to a single report. That way I could print this single document off to the printer / virtual pdf printer.

Looking into a second route of word templates and embedded queries within a word document to generate the report (similar in some respects to a mail merge). Not too hopefull thought as it looks hard and the columns will probbably be all over the place.

Hi Joe,
Have you tried any other print to pdf drivers?

i use click to convert which has a print driver and supports multi page pdf.

have you looked on download.com? there are quite a number of them, but i dont know what they are like.
Scott

Hi Scott, thanks for the kind comment.

Unfortunately the software we are using is on Trust machines and they only have the basic CutePDF package installed.

For anyone watching, I solved it! there is always a way.

Make a word document, insert some bookmarks and hey presto in VBA you can automate the process of:-

1. Open a QUERY (to filter your data)
2. Select All records
3. Copy
4. Close the Query
5. Switch to word
6. Locate bookmark
7. Paste the clipboard
8. Format the table

By having multiple bookmarks in msword templates etc you can create custom reports with multiple tables of data and text.

If anyone would like the sourcecode or a sample let me know (should you ever have need of something like this).

--> works a treat for planned maintenance notificatins / inspection reports etc.

Joe