Print 2 pages of report side by side

[rpadams]

Does anyone know how to set up a report so that by default it prints to the screen at 75% with 2 pages side by side? I'm really looking for some VBA that fires when I hit my "Print Report" button on my form.

 

[Pat Hartman]

This is a function of your printer.
1. Select the report to highlight it.
2. File/Page setup
3. Page tab - choose the use specific printer option.
4. Press the printer button
5. from here the dialog will probably differ depending on whether or not your printer supports the option. I'm using an HP Deskjet 990c. I've enclosed a picture of my advanced printer dialog.

 

[rpadams]

I guess I meant to say print "preview"

What I'm looking for is a way to automatically show the print preview screen display as two pages and 75% in the same way you can manually do it by clicking the 2 page icon and the 75% scale from the Access report toolbar.

My rationale is that I often give my users a quick preview (via a print preview button) of the report so they can check it out before wasting paper. The screen preview can be condensed (even "to fit" or less than 75%) but the actual print button might be at 100%, one per page.

 

[Pat Hartman]

Immediately after the OpenReport method, add the following two lines of code:

    DoCmd.Maximize
    DoCmd.RunCommand acCmdPreviewTwoPages

You can do the maximize in the report's open event but the second command doesn't work there for some reason so this technique only works from outside the report. You can't open a report from the reports page of the database container and have this effect. You can preview up to 12 pages by changing the argument.

 

[Pat Hartman]

FYI - just about anything you can do from the GUI can be done with DoCmd.RunCommand. Just type it in a procedure and scroll through the list of arguments.

 

[rpadams]

Thanks -- just what I needed

This was just what I wanted. I had tried something similar from the open event of the report itself and kept running into just the problem you described. I just hadn't thought to use the line in the open report method on my calling form. Where does Microsoft document all these twists and turns where something works one place and not another? The cryptic "function not available here" is not too helpful. I sometimes feel I am programming by trial and error -- and wasting a good deal of time in the process.

I added the line DoCmd.RunCommand acCmdZoom75 in the same place, as you suggested.

 

[Pat Hartman]

My first inclination was to use the Open event of the form but it sort of makes sense that the function wouldn't be available there since the open event happens prior to the report actually opening. The maximize and preview commands need to be executed after the report is open. If there were an event that fired after the report opened, that would work. I tried the Activate event but that didn't work either so I am as much in the dark as you.