Bogus Printer?

  • Thread starter Thread starter David Habercom
  • Start date Start date
D

David Habercom

I have a 3300+ page report which, for administrative reasons, is sent to
the printer as 1400+ smaller reports. I would like to test-run the report
without wasting 3300 sheets of paper. I need a piece of software that
appears to Win 2000 as a printer but which actually saves the report(s) to
disk, or even trashes them.

I have tried several tricks, none of which really works

Adobe Acrobat is an obvious choice, but when Access sends "print" to
Acrobat, Acrobat sees "convert," which requires me to preview and approve
all 1400 documents. (Acrobat does allow you to disable this feature for
"print," but not for "convert.") Does anyone know how to work around this
issue?

I have tried pausing my printer after the first page prints, but eventually
the spooler demands that I retry/cancel, and in the end stops accepting new
documents around #295.

Does anyone know of software that looks like a printer but isn't? I don't
need to preview the pages; I just need to complete the run.

Thanks.

David
 
How about checking the box "Print to File"?

Immanuel Sibero
Click to expand...

When the command is issued from VBA (DoCmd.OpenReport "Report"), the
printer dialog does not come up. Even if it did, I imagine I would have to
verify each report and provide a file name, which would be impractical.
 
Hi David,

If Immanuel's suggestion works, great. But I'm worried that checking the
Print to File box will get 1400 Save As dialogs to fill in.

A possible way of avoiding that is to set up a printer port that prints
to a particular file. Just add a new local port, and name it something
like "C:\Temp\Temp.prn". Assign the printer driver you want to use to
this port, and all its output will be sent to this file.

Then all you need do is add a couple of lines of code to delete the file
(if it exists) before each call to your print routine.
 
Hi David,

Sorry I was reading your post too fast, missed the part about 3000+
docmd.openreport.
John Nurick's suggestion of adding a local printer with local port seems to
work well. I tried it, it printed my reports, but didnt find them on any of
my printers. So they must've just vanished.

Immanuel Sibero
 
Mark said:
Try doing a Google search for "Virtual Printers"; there are lots of
things to look at...
Click to expand...

Thanks, Mark. I downloaded "Print Distributor" from Frogmore Computer
Services, and that did the job. I might even be able to use it to get
Acrobat under control.

Best regards,

David
 
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