Between a rock and a hard place on generating pdf's from access

[Dirk Goldgar]

Access 2007, vmware, citrix

I have an application that happily converts access reports to pdf and
emails
them - using adobe or foxit, or whatever is to hand.
Well it's quite happy in my development environment.
In the option settings of the pdf printer I set up the default directory,
tell it to use default directory and file name, don't prompt for file
name,
don't show the converted pdf file - ie just tick box settings to make the
conversion process run quietly.

The problem in my clients environment (citrix, vmware) is that the IT
department is not willing to relax security settings enough for these
preference settings to "stick".
Is there any product that does not go down the route of printing to a pdf
driver - ie something that would give me a good chance of controlling
where
the converted pdf file would end up while at the same time flying under
the
radar of the IT department.

The other alternative is to investigate the PDF printing capabilities of
Office 2007 - but I've only converted one application to 2007 so far and
that was an extremely negative experience - I'm believing at this stage
that
converting for the sake of pdf production will produce more pain than it
will fix.

Any suggestions very gratefully received
Many thanks
Tony Epton

I don't know whether it will work in your client's environment or not, but
Stephen Lebans' ReportToPDF doesn't use a printer driver, and gives fairly
complete control of the process. See this link:

http://www.lebans.com/reporttopdf.htm

It uses a couple of third-party DLLs, but they don't have to be registered
on the PC, just placed in the application's home folder.

 

[Aceware]

Access 2007, vmware, citrix

I have an application that happily converts access reports to pdf and emails
them - using adobe or foxit, or whatever is to hand.
Well it's quite happy in my development environment.
In the option settings of the pdf printer I set up the default directory,
tell it to use default directory and file name, don't prompt for file name,
don't show the converted pdf file - ie just tick box settings to make the
conversion process run quietly.

The problem in my clients environment (citrix, vmware) is that the IT
department is not willing to relax security settings enough for these
preference settings to "stick".
Is there any product that does not go down the route of printing to a pdf
driver - ie something that would give me a good chance of controlling where
the converted pdf file would end up while at the same time flying under the
radar of the IT department.

The other alternative is to investigate the PDF printing capabilities of
Office 2007 - but I've only converted one application to 2007 so far and
that was an extremely negative experience - I'm believing at this stage that
converting for the sake of pdf production will produce more pain than it
will fix.

Any suggestions very gratefully received
Many thanks
Tony Epton

 

[Aceware]

I don't know whether it will work in your client's environment or not, but

Stephen Lebans' ReportToPDF doesn't use a printer driver, and gives fairly
complete control of the process. See this link:

http://www.lebans.com/reporttopdf.htm

It uses a couple of third-party DLLs, but they don't have to be registered
on the PC, just placed in the application's home folder.

--
Dirk Goldgar, MS Access MVP
www.datagnostics.com

(please reply to the newsgroup)

Many thanks Dirk
I will go there and read about it.
Tony

 

[Tony Toews [MVP]]

I don't know whether it will work in your client's environment or not, but
Stephen Lebans' ReportToPDF doesn't use a printer driver, and gives fairly
complete control of the process. See this link:

http://www.lebans.com/reporttopdf.htm

It uses a couple of third-party DLLs, but they don't have to be registered
on the PC, just placed in the application's home folder.

I don't see why they wouldn't work even in a very locked down
environment. Unless the IT staff are Nazi enough to go looking for
DLLs and delete them. Which I've heard about.

Tony

 

[Albert D. Kallal]

Also, additional to Stephan's solution, keep in mind that with the recent
sp2 update installed for office, you have NATIVE pdf support built right
into ms-access.

That means you don't need nor install a printer driver, and in fact you
don't even need Stephan's solution......

PDF ability is now built into ms-access. You don't need to switch
printers...nor do you need any additional 3rd party tools installed.......

 

[Fred]

Have their CEO write the IT department a new mission statement.

All of the IT/CTO/CIO magazines are handwringing that their top guys are
moving lower on the corporate ladder. Mostly because they would rather be
controllers than enablers.

 

[Aceware]

Thanks Albert

We are seriously thinking about that - but so far I have only converted one
application to Access 2007 and it was a fairly traumatic experience.
ie a stable working application suddenly out of action for 4 days as I ran
around putting out fires (the user rolled out Office 2007 without checking
with me first)

I know I am probably a grumpy old reactionary programmer who doesn't like
any change, and one day I will come to love 2007 - but at the moment it
seems that converting to 2007 will cause more pain than it solves.

Thanks
Tony

 

[Albert D. Kallal]

Any suggestions very gratefully received
Many thanks
Tony Epton

I only suggested the built in PDF since in your original post you mentioned
you using a2007.....

It seems that not the case...

I mean if you were using a2007 then it only makes 100% sense to use the
built in PDF system and not bother to install a PDF printer system, or even
using 3rd party solutions like Stephan's....

 

[Aceware]

Yes - you are quite right Albert - that was a mistake on my original post -
sorry to cause confusion.
Best wishes
Tony