Designing Reports for different printers

[razorking]

Maybe I am missing something obvious here, but this has given me grief before and is now rearing it's ugly head again:
I have reports in my database that are designed for a printer other than my Windows default printer. I need Access to remember where each specific report is designed to print.
For example: I have a report that is actually a 4X6 label and it prints to a Zebra printer. Well my Windows default printer is not the Zebra, so now every time I want to go to print preview or look at the report design it wants to think the report is designed for my Windows laser printer, drives me crazy. I don't want to be changing the selected printer all the time or have to be screwing with the default printer.

Any way to get the database to know that this specific report is designed on the Zebra?

Thanks!

 

[shadow9449]

Maybe I am missing something obvious here, but this has given me grief before and is now rearing it's ugly head again:
I have reports in my database that are designed for a printer other than my Windows default printer. I need Access to remember where each specific report is designed to print.
For example: I have a report that is actually a 4X6 label and it prints to a Zebra printer. Well my Windows default printer is not the Zebra, so now every time I want to go to print preview or look at the report design it wants to think the report is designed for my Windows laser printer, drives me crazy. I don't want to be changing the selected printer all the time or have to be screwing with the default printer.

Any way to get the database to know that this specific report is designed on the Zebra?

Thanks!

See if this helps:

http://www.members.shaw.ca/AlbertKallal/msaccess/msaccess.html

SHADOW

 

[Alan R]

Or have you tried setting your reports to a specific printer from within the Report Page Setup:

With your report showing, select File - Page Setup
On the Page Setup form select Page
At the bottom select "Use Specific Printer" and set accordingly.

Alan

 

[Fifty2One]

i just tried alan r's suggestion and it works 100% on the two zebras i have been fighting with all week long!!!

 

[razorking]

Still no go

Well, it's still not working for me. I am really not sure how to use Shadow's suggestion so...have not tried that.

I have tried Alan's suggestion, multiple times, and also before posting this thread. The specific printer I select is never retained. The next time come back it just thinks it is supposed to printed on my default printer, so the 4x6 label is trying to print on an 8.5 x11 piece of paper. It is just driving me crazy. I am not a total idiot but, I can't figure this out.

Why in hell can I not design one report to print on a printer other than my default printer and then have Access remember that printer belongs to that report, and thereby retain all of the paper size settings etc.?

Any one else have any experience with this?

 

[Alan R]

Post stripped down database?

Thats strange, i have used that method on a number of reports within the same database and i have never had any problems with it, admittedly not to a zebra printer.

Since Fifty2One got it to work as well it would seem to indicate that it must be a problem within your db / setup (sorry for stating the obvious), is there any way you could post a version of your db here, somebody may notice something.

Alan

 

[Rich]

Have you turned off the AutoCorrect bug ridden feature or downloaded the patch for it?

 

[MStCyr]

Perhaps the sample that I have posted in the samples area might be useful to you .... ie. how to programatically select a printer..

http://www.access-programmers.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=105694

 

[Alan R]

Have a look here

http://www.helenfeddema.com/access.htm

There are a number of papers on Printing and perhaps number 131 will help

Alan

 

[razorking]

Getting back to working on this

Kind of a late response, thanks to everyone who took the time to answer.

I got swept off in other diresctions and did not have time to work on this for awhile.

This has been fairly nightmarish, I did not have a chance to review all of the suggestions here. I finally found this http://allenbrowne.com/AppPrintMgt.html
And was able to make use of it. So far what I was able to patch together with Allen's unknowing help seems to be holding up.

There are still some things here that I do not understand, would be great if someone with a thorough understanding of the situation could explain it to me.

I am not sure why Access behaves like this:
As I mentioned I have designed a report in Access that prints on a 4x6 Zebra printer, it is a bar-coded label.
Clearly the Zebra printer would not be my default Windows printer (sorry I don't want my Word documents printinng on a 4x6 adhesive label.
The label was painstakingly designed and appeared to be working well.

The problem was, whenever I close and reopen the database it thinks the report(label) should go to my default printer (laser printer) and then it is trying to format everything for an 8.5x11 piece of paper. And the only way I can fix things is to close Access and change my default printer back to the Zebra, reopen and print. But it gets very old to change the default printer back and forth all the time.

I am using Access 2007.

And, I have tried to go to page setup and specify a specific printer to use for the report, but the setting is never retained...should I expect that it would be???

Why is there not an easy way to tell the database that a specific report always goes to a specific printer, if it exists??

Thanks for listening to my vent.

 

[Ziggy1]

funny I am just searching for a similar thing. I have used it like this where you specify the printer in the page setup, but the problem is that if someone else on the network opens the report they will screw it up. They have to have the same printer named (Exactly)on their system .

But what I want is to find some Code that will allow me to control the printer names from a form.

*Not sure if you ever used labelview that ussually comes with Zebra's, but I find it a very annoying program. that's why I like to use Access.

 

[Fifty2One]

funny this bumped up again just when i had similar troubles with a zebra and a laser... i had the parameter set to use a specific printer in page set up for the labels and suddenly last week the labels printed on the laser rather than the shipping label stock in the zebra...
...after i spend a ton of time trying to figure it out the person working in the shipping area said "maybe it is because so-and-so was trying to print his pictures on the laser printer"...

...venting done!

 

[GaryPanic]

- coming late on this -

could it be labels
ie as the d/b-printer knows its doing labels - it selects the default printer/printer tray

example when I merge and do labels print to my printer it always goes for the default tray - irresepctive of what I have told it to do -

g