Was previewed report printed?

[Fred Smith]

Is it possible to determine from the report's code if the
user has actually printed a report opened in print-preview?

 

[Steve Schapel]

Fred,

As far as I know, the answer is No. You can put a custom menubar on
the report preview, with a Print command, so that this is then the
only way the report can be printed. If so, you can include something
in the code on the menubar command to flag the printing. But in the
end, the best that this can ever do is tell you that the Print button
was clicked, and not whether the report, subject to printer errors
etc, was actually successfully printed.

- Steve Schapel, Microsoft Access MVP

 

[ahoy]

I too am keen to find a solution.

The closest I have come is the following URL, but it doesn't quite
reach my requirements. I may be able to adapt it.

I want the user to be able to preview or print a report. But I want to
tick a 'Printed' checkbox if the report was actually printed.

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/attac-cg/ARptTip.htm#PREVIEW

This URL comes very close, but wants me to restrict the user from
clicking on the printer icon. I'm not sure that I want to restrict the
user.

Let me know if you find any other solutions.

Cheers
David Fenton
Brisbane
Australia

 

[SA]

David:

Outside of what is on our site, the other way to know if the report was
previewed was to determine if the OnActivate event fires; it only does when
previewing the report.

However, because there's no "ToPrint" event, there's no way to determine if
and when the report was printed. And as Steve Schapel indicates, you can
always have printer errors, even if the report was successfully sent to the
print spooler.

The best way, therefore that we've determined to manage this is, as our web
indicates, is to "restrict" the user in print preview from printing the
report using Access standard toolbar buttons or menu items; your app must
control the printing. (e.g. either with a button on your form or with a
custom menu that eliminates the Standard Access Print option, or replaces it
with a tool bar and menu option that calls a custom function of your own).
Then when your functions send the report to print then run your update query
to "tick" the "printed" field.

Nothing else really is effective.