Weird default printer problem

[Jeff Robson]

I'm using a customised version of the Time and Billing sample database
running on Access 2003.

I have a default printer set to a local color inkjet printer and that
all works fine (my reports have some colored lines as well as a small
gif image logo).

My difficulty is that if I change my default printer to a network B&W
laser printer (HP Laserjet 4050 Series PCL 6), I can't open any of my
reports - in either preview or design view.

Curiously however, as soon as I change to another default printer that
is capable of printing in color (eg my 'local' Adobe Acrobat PDF
Writer, or a networked color printer) all my reports work fine again!

Access appears to be the only application on my PC that has this
problem. Is anyone aware of an incompatibility with this particular
printer or is there a problem printing a color report to a B&W
printer?

Unfortunately, I don't have any other B&W printers I can test this
issue with to see if it's isolated to this particular printer.

I also tried someone else's suggestion of removing the Autocorrect as
I read that this can interfere with printing reports however this did
not appear to affect the issue.

Interestingly, if I set the page setup to use the Laserjet as a
specific printer, it all works fine as well! Weird!

Any suggestions? I'd really prefer to use this as my default printer
for Access as well as all my other applications but if I have to
change default printers all the time or setup each report to use this
specific printer, it's going to be quite painful!

TIA

Jeff Robson

 

[Guest]

Jeff -

Not sure of you specific issue, but MS now gives the ability to set a
'Default Access' Printer. See the link below:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/d...ry/en-us/dnacc2k2/html/ODC_acc10_Printers.asp

Since you are able to print from the page setup screen, this workaround does
just that. It brings up the report & changes the printer at print time. I
have tried it, & this technique works wonderfully! - HTH