How do we get feedback from the printer??

[Sausagefingers]

Hi,
we ran into quite a serious problem the other day whilst batch printing a large number of reports from Access 2000.

For some unknown reason the print job got interrupted part way through, resulting in a large number of reports not printing at all.

Our database uses an sql fragment to set the field 'isPrinted' to true upon sending reports to the printer. This is primarily to prevent records being printed more than once.

However, if, as above, the print job doesn't successfully complete the db still, as expected, marks the record as such. This provides us with a somewhat flase account of the status of the print job.

My question is this, is there a way in vb that Access can verify the success/failure of a print job?? Are there modules or code examples available that might help us interrogate the printer and perhaps abort on error?

* Standard Disclaimer:

VB Noob! Gentle brow-slapping only please!

 

[RuralGuy]

AFAIK your only reliable option is to ask the user/operator if everything printed properly.

 

[liddlem]

I guess that one way might be to generate a report from within a loop. . . BUT its EXTREMELY heavy on the resources.

Get a count of the number of records in a query.
Move pointer to record 1
Do while not EOF()
Print record1
Move to next record
'
' You may want to put in a delay here so that next print report/batch starts after this one has finished?
'
loop

And then (especially if a report is multiple pages long) you would still have follow RuralGuys advice and get the operator to check/confirm that all came out right.

 

[unclejoe]

If you're talking about printer hardware issues like memory errors, no paper where the printer keeps running, etc., there's nothing to stop your code or cause your application from running.

So far, I have never come across a printer that can communicates with an application before. You might want to do search for a printer that can "Talk" to an application to stop a routine in your code if there was an error from the printer.

Hi,
we ran into quite a serious problem the other day whilst batch printing a large number of reports from Access 2000.

For some unknown reason the print job got interrupted part way through, resulting in a large number of reports not printing at all.

Our database uses an sql fragment to set the field 'isPrinted' to true upon sending reports to the printer. This is primarily to prevent records being printed more than once.

However, if, as above, the print job doesn't successfully complete the db still, as expected, marks the record as such. This provides us with a somewhat flase account of the status of the print job.

My question is this, is there a way in vb that Access can verify the success/failure of a print job?? Are there modules or code examples available that might help us interrogate the printer and perhaps abort on error?

* Standard Disclaimer:

VB Noob! Gentle brow-slapping only please!

 

[Sausagefingers]

Thanks for all your advice. I feared this would be the case. I was rather hoping that there was a way, other than relying on the honesty/integrity of the database user, to accurately confirm the success of a print job. Not meaning to be disrespectful to the operator but the 'user confirms' method just seems so easy to circumnavigate.

Once again, thanks for your help.
Sausagefingers

 

[Rabbie]

Hi

Printing has always been an asynchronous operation. This because printers are slow compared to processors and are often shared between jobs so even when everything is working properly there can be a time lapse between starting the print job and the the output actually being printed.

A Google search gave me this link which may help you.