Outputto PDF Encoding options

[gschimek]

I'm using some VBA code to save a report as a PDF, and then email that report off to a small number of people. I've been getting complaints that some people are not able to open the PDF, as it shows up as garbage text instead of an actual attachment to the email. I think it has to do with the email service that those people are using, but I need to know what makes this PDF different than any other PDF that they might open without problem.

I'm wondering if it has something to do with the way that Access 2010 is encoding the PDF. I noticed that if I manually export the report to a PDF, I have the option to set it to ISO 19005-1 compliant. Also, I noticed that one of the options in the docmd.outputto command is [encoding]. I can't find any documentation on what to set that encoding option to.

So is there a way to force the PDF to be ISO 19005 compliant when using the outputto command? Or does anyone have any other thoughts on what the problem might be with people not being able to open these files? Any help is appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[boblarson]

The encoding part is only for text for html. And the OutputFormat is acFormatPDF.

EDIT: You should also probably find out from them what version of Acrobat Reader they are using and/or if they are using the full version of Adobe Acrobat.

 

[gschimek]

OK, so the encoding option is out. Good to know.

As for the version of reader they're using, it doesn't apply. The attachment doesn't even show up as a PDF. The email they receive just has this at the end of it:

"begin 666 Team_List.pdf
M)5!$1BTQ+C4-"B6UM;6U#0HQ(# @;V)J#0H\/"]4>7!E+T-A=&%L;V<O4&%G
M97,@,B P(%(O3&%N9RAE;BU54RD@+TUA<FM);F9O/#PO36%R:V5D('1R=64^
M/CX^#0IE;F1O8FH-"C(@,"!O8FH-"CP\+U1Y<&4O4&%G97,O0V]U;G0@,B]+
M:61S6R S(# @4B Y(# @4ET@/CX-"F5N9&]BT*,R P(&]BT*/#PO5'EP
M92]086=E+U!A<F5N=" R(# @4B]297-O=7)C97,\/"]&;VYT/#PO1C$@-2"​

There's a lot more garbage like that, but you get the idea. It's like the file gets attached as ASCII text instead of a binary file or something like that. But what's strange is that I can send one email with 10 recipients in the To: field and only 1 or 2 of them have problems. The rest receive the file just fine. That's why I'm questioning the way that Access is encoding the PDF. Maybe there's an issue with it and some email services are able to deal with it but others aren't??

 

[spikepl]

I had a case like this recently. It was a problem at the email provider. It got resolved by changing the mail provider.

Veri fy that it is not a PDF issue by getting the PDF to them by other means - eg. in an attachment but zipped, or DL from eg Gdrive or Dropbox.