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Garry Robinson
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Is Your Database Corrupt
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Save
Reports As PDF Files From Access
Following are a list of the things that you should know about if you are interested is saving Access reports and other printable objects in Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) format. Some of this material relates to the conversion of any printable object (Word, Excel) to PDF format.
Before you start, you will need to purchase a copy of Adobe Acrobat (see Adobe.com). This will provide you with the Adobe Distiller and Adobe Acrobat software that will enable you to save the files in the PDF standard format. The examples shown below were produced using Adobe Acrobat version 5. Once you have built a PDF file, anyone will be able to view the file using the free Adobe Acrobat reader software.
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Printer Driver The saving of reports is handled through a special
printer driver that converts printed output into PDF format. This
is managed through the Adobe Distiller software. Because it is a
printer driver, any software that can print can output to a PDF
file. Figure 1 shows Printing of an Access report using
Distiller. Generally, Distiller will not be your default printer driver so
you will have to select the printer driver manually from the Advanced
Printing menu option on the File Menu of most programs. In
Microsoft Products, hit the Ctrl-P keys together. |
Click the image to expand it into a full window |
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Save File As When you say OK to print, you will then be prompted for the name of the PDF file that you want to save. The default name will be the name of the Access report. If this is a report that you need to keep (such as an invoice), you will need to manually enter a new file name or the report will be overwritten the next time you save the report.
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Watermarks Etc The Distiller printer driver is very smart in that it
allows you to make a number of changes to the report before it is saved
in PDF format . One alteration that is worth
noting is the use of Watermarks. In figure 3, I have added a custom
watermark to inform the customer that the invoice that I am sending them is overdue.
Figure 4 show the result on the converted PDF file.
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The PDF File Once the PDF file is produced, Adobe Acrobat will
(optionally) open to allow you to view the PDF file. An alternative
would be to manually open the file in Windows Explorer using the free Adobe
Acrobat
reader. Figure 4 shows the report in PDF format with the
optional Watermark specified in Figure 3. There are many changes that you can now
make to the report using Adobe Acrobat including
digital signatures, text changes and adding comments.
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 Figure 4 - The printer driver saves the report to PDF format and then opens Acrobat to display/alter the file. |
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Output Directory One of the more confusing things for end users (and the author) was the default directory used to store the PDF files. This was c:\windows\users\all users\desktop\ on my Windows ME computer. To manage the settings of your Distiller printer driver, Click the Start button and then choose Settings ... Printers. Now right click the Distiller Printer and choose properties. See figure 5.
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Change The Output Directory To change the output directory, Choose Add Port ... Other and then use the Browse option. All the directories that you like to save files in will be maintained in a list. You will need to select the one that you want using this Printer Control Panel property technique.
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Sharing Your Distiller Output
As the PDF output is handed through a printer driver, I set the properties of the printer driver on my machine to network Shared and then went to another machine and used the shared Distiller printer driver to print to. Surprisingly the file was converted to PDF and displayed on the machine where the printer driver was set up. This process did not allow you to change the name of the file and having Acrobat jump up on a machine that is being used by another person would be quite odd if they didn't know it was going to happen. But I guess that you would save on installing the Acrobat software on another machine if it was only going to be used very occasionally. i.e. a Laptop.
Figure 7 - You can share your Adobe Distiller software across the network
(with some odd results)
Summing Up
PDF files are a very popular way of saving, viewing and sharing documents. Because the Acrobat PDF reader is freely available on most corporate PC's and Macs, it is an important technology to understand. As you can see from the examples above, saving to PDF format is a relatively easy for any user who has a modest understanding of files and printer drivers.
Unfortunately, the control of where these files are stored is in the hands of the users so if you want programmatically save documents such as Access reports, you are going to be reliant on the users of your software to use a file naming convention and to store the reports in a standard folder.
The other major issue to consider is the price of the full Acrobat software package. If you need to install a printer driver on every machine, you are going to have software cost very similar to the cost of installing Access on every machine.
If cost or file management is a worrying factor, you can always use the free Access snapshot format that is available for Access 97 Service pack 1 upwards. This format is not very popular and it will not run on Macs and other non Windows equipment.
All in all, Adobe Acrobat and its Distiller printer driver is a very high quality software product that will enhance any business where reports and transfer of documents is important.
Now you may want to read about other PDF generators
and printer drivers that our readers have recommended
Links for resources on cheap PDF File
Generators
Click on the
button for the next page in this Access Loop.
Other Related pages at vb123 are
Issue 7 of Access Unlimited - save your reports and maps with Adobe Acrobat
Microsoft FreeStuff - Download the Snapshot Driver software for Access 97
Issue 18 Of Access Unlimited - More on the Access Snapshot