Form Printing Issue

[rbsorensen]

Hi,

I have a rather complex form printing issue and would appreciate any help from the access gurus on what the best design approach should be.

Here's the situation: I am adding logic to an existing system to print an order along with a series of supplementary forms. There is an existing "print" version of the order form which displays the necessary fields and has a Print button at the top which exectes a "DoCmd.PrintOut" command. That part of the system is already in place.

The enhancement to the system consists of a variable number of supplementary forms associated with the main order form (from 0 - 8). To make things even more interesting, there are three varieties of supplementary forms, each containing different data. The data entry portion of the system is finished, and now I need to work on the printing aspects.

The application requires that the main order along with each of the supplementary forms, if any, are all printed in one fell swoop when the user clicks the "Print" button on the main order form. Each supplementary form will also require code to massage some of the the data prior to printing it (i.e., I can't directly bind text boxes on supplementary forms to database fields).

Any thoughts on how best to accomplish this?

 

[John Big Booty]

Forms are generally designed for the entry of data. Reports on the other hands are designed to be printed. Are you using the correct object?

 

[rbsorensen]

The application was written by an individual who didn't know Access very well, and who designed the order to print from a form object.

I am trying to add the new functionality with the minimum amount of surgery, and leverage what they already have in place as much as possible.

The already-implemented order form is also complex and includes an add-in for printing bar codes, which may be why a report object could not be used.

 

[John Big Booty]

Whether you are printing forms or Reports the process should be stil the same.

What you will need to do is identify the conditions under which each set of forms is to be printed and then in your print command test for each of those conditions and print the set of forms specific to that condition.