I'd like to automate printing a report to a pre-selected Acrobat pdf
file name. I've set the printer for the report to use the specific
printer "Acrobat PDF." When previewing the report, and selecting Print,
a popup box will always prompt for a location and filename. I'd like to
specify the filename, and print to that filename, overlaying an existing
one if present.

My old method of printing to an rtf file via a macro doesn't work, since
output to pdf isn't native to Access, unless I missed something in the
install.

I'm using Access 2003 and Acrobat 7.0.

Thanks.

--
David E. Jones

On Fri, 17 Feb 2006 09:57:25 -0500, David E. Jones wrote in
microsoft.public.access.macros:

>I'd like to automate printing a report to a pre-selected Acrobat pdf
>file name. I've set the printer for the report to use the specific
>printer "Acrobat PDF." When previewing the report, and selecting Print,
>a popup box will always prompt for a location and filename. I'd like to
>specify the filename, and print to that filename, overlaying an existing
>one if present.
>
>My old method of printing to an rtf file via a macro doesn't work, since
>output to pdf isn't native to Access, unless I missed something in the
>install.
>
>I'm using Access 2003 and Acrobat 7.0.

You need:
1) a Reference to Acrobat Distiller (ACRODIST.EXE);
2) set the printer to "Acrobat Distiller";
3) print your report as a Postscript file;
4) define a PDFDistiller object;
5) convert the PS file to PDF using the FileToPDF method of the
PDFDistiller object;
6) clean up (delete PS file, reset printer to default).

There are plenty of examples on the Internet and Usenet. I posted some
skeleton code for Excel here:
<http://groups.google.com.au/group/microsoft.public.access/browse_frm/thread/233394b566500b71/73a70a6ee8868107>.

--
Michael Bednarek http://mbednarek.com/ "POST NO BILLS"

David,

I have not used Acrobat, but I would presume that somewhere in there it
has a facility to set a default file name for the output. Other than
that, what you have done is correct. If Acrobat does not support this
functionality, there are plenty of PDF writers that do.
http://www.pdf995.com/ is one example, just downlaod and install and
then set the printer for the report to PDF995. For memory I think it
only costs $9.95.

--
Steve Schapel, Microsoft Access MVP


David E. Jones wrote:
> I'd like to automate printing a report to a pre-selected Acrobat pdf
> file name. I've set the printer for the report to use the specific
> printer "Acrobat PDF." When previewing the report, and selecting Print,
> a popup box will always prompt for a location and filename. I'd like to
> specify the filename, and print to that filename, overlaying an existing
> one if present.
>
> My old method of printing to an rtf file via a macro doesn't work, since
> output to pdf isn't native to Access, unless I missed something in the
> install.
>
> I'm using Access 2003 and Acrobat 7.0.
>
> Thanks.
>

On 2/17/06 9:57 AM, in article (E-Mail Removed), "David E. Jones"
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

> I'd like to automate printing a report to a pre-selected Acrobat pdf
> file name. I've set the printer for the report to use the specific
> printer "Acrobat PDF." When previewing the report, and selecting Print,
> a popup box will always prompt for a location and filename. I'd like to
> specify the filename, and print to that filename, overlaying an existing
> one if present.
>
> My old method of printing to an rtf file via a macro doesn't work, since
> output to pdf isn't native to Access, unless I missed something in the
> install.
>
> I'm using Access 2003 and Acrobat 7.0.
>
> Thanks.
II think we all would
Do not get back

Steve Schapel wrote:
> David,
>
> I have not used Acrobat, but I would presume that somewhere in there it
> has a facility to set a default file name for the output. Other than
> that, what you have done is correct. If Acrobat does not support this
> functionality, there are plenty of PDF writers that do.
> http://www.pdf995.com/ is one example, just downlaod and install and
> then set the printer for the report to PDF995. For memory I think it
> only costs $9.95.
>

Thanks, all for the suggestions. It's pretty much as I thought, and
since the report I have in mind is run only a few times a year, I'll
simply write the instructions for printing it from Access to Acrobat and
to specify the path and filename. I'd like to have stayed with the rtf
output, but the rtf formatting is very undependable.

--
David E. Jones