Automatically e-mail as .pdf

[Krysti]

Hi there,

I've seen lots of threads on this subject, but haven't come across any that answers this question... I'd like for users to be able to click on a button and automatically e-mail a report in .pdf format. I'm not that versed in code, but I know the code for .xls format would be:

DoCmd.SendObject acReport, "rptBETACIRC", "Microsoft Excel(*.xls)", "", "", "", "Water Analysis Report", "", False, ""

Does anyone know how I could do this as a .pdf? By the way, it needs to work with Windows 98/Access 97. I found a download that would work (not exactly the same way, but good enough), but it won't work with Win98.

Thanks for any and all suggestions!

Krysti

 

[jeremie_ingram]

If I am not mistaken, you will require a fullversion of adobe acrobat. Once you have this, you can compile documents into pdf files as easily as sending something to a printer. You would have to first run the process of converting the file/report into the PDF format, then retrieve it and send it as an attachment.
It all depends as to what level of automation you are looking at, and which applications you are using. Access cannot simply create a PDF document, since Acrobat (not Microsoft) has the rights to that.
If you would like to fully automate the process, I would say you would need Access, Adobe Acrobat Full, and Outlook with an external connection. If this is a single report created on a regular basis, and you do not need to archieve them, then you could write the code/macro that would run the report and print it throught the Adobe PDF writer. You could save it under the same file name every time and overwrite the previous one. Schedule Outlook to send a message out based on a template that contains the appropriate addresss, and the file attachment.

Sound plausible?

 

[jadair]

You can download an addin somewhere that will give you an Adobe toolbar This will give you two buttons; one to convert to pdf and the other allows you to convert to pdf and email. I know it works in word but I haven't tried it in Access. The only problem is I can no longer find it. The toolbar was already installed on my old computer at work and when I switched computers I lost it. I'm not sure if this will be any help at all, maybe it will help someoen else along the way.

 

[Krysti]

Thanks for the responses. I have the download pdf995 which will output the report to a pdf. But, then you have to save the file and attach it to the email manually. Unfortunately, the people who will be using this database are not really computer literate so I want to automate it for them.

Jeremie -

It's not a report that will go out on a continual basis or to the same person, but thanks for the suggestion.

Jadair -

There is a free program that you can download that has an email option right on the "Save" screen. That would work, except there isn't a version of it to run on Windows 98. For anyone who needs this though, the link is http://www.daneprairie.com/

Ugh! It always seems I run into problems whenever I try to do something that theoretically seems easy. It would be so great if I could just write this code and it would work...

DoCmd.SendObject acReport, "rptBETACIRC", "Adobe Acrobat(*.pdf)", "", "", "", "Water Analysis Report", "", False, ""

Any other suggestions?

Thanks,

Krysti