Problem printing JPEGs in reports

[Guest]

I have a database built from scratch in Access 2007 that includes an
attachment field which is used to store JPEG photos of people's faces that
are printed onto ID cards. It has been working perfectly until recently when
the photos get distorted (they look almost as though they have gone into
4-bit colour mode with lots of dithering). When you view the report in
'Report View' the picture looks perfect, but when you go to 'Print Preview'
the distortion occurs. It is nothing to do with the images themselves, as
ones that have printed perfectly before are now distorted. I have also tried
using images of varying resolution, compression, even BMP instead of JPEG all
with no effect.

When printing the report the effect varies depending on which printer is
used (and creating a PDF of the report doesn't show the problem).

It is not tied to a particular PC; and interestingly not tied to the
specific database (I created a clean database as a test and found the same
problem there). Also occurs on both XP and Vista OS.

Screengrabs to show the issue can be seen here:

http://www.cforce.co.uk/support/Access2007ReportView.jpg
http://www.cforce.co.uk/support/Access2007PrintPreview.jpg

Has there been a recent hotfix that could have caused this?

Any other ideas?

Tennant

 

[Guest]

BUMP! Any ideas, as I need to get this resolved. Have implemented a
workaround in the meantime of printing the report to a PDF and then printing
the PDF to the printer, but it's a pain!

Tennant

 

[Rob Parker]

Hi Tennant,

I recall your presious post, but didn't (and still don't) know the answer.
But since you're desperate, here's a suggestion which I recall from previous
similar posts. Check to ensure that the printer is not set to Draft mode
(although I don't quite understand why that should affect the print
preview - but it can affect the actual printed output).

And if that doesn't work, then sorry - I've no other ideas.

Rob

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the suggestion Rob. Unfortunately the card printer doesn't have a
draft mode (and I've tried every permutation of printer settings); as you
say, this wouldn't affect the print preview if that were the cause.

Tennant