Problem combining PDF

[JamworkS]

Hello guys, this is my first post asking for help.

I've searched and found no answer for this issue I have.

At work we use Access 2010 and Windows 7. We have lots of reports that we print out in PDF format thanks to the DoCmd.OutputTo command. Our aim is to get a bunch of those PDFs and try to combine them all together with PDFCreator. I'm already able to do this with "normal" files (portrait mode) but I cannot seem to get it to work in landscape mode. All the single PDFs that are in landscape mode, print out right, but when I join them they come out in portrait, so it looks all wrong.

I've looked through the cOptions lists provided in PDFCreator's webpage but can't seem to find an answer, or a setting for it.

Thank you, any help appreciated.

Regards.

 

[JamworkS]

Also, I've tried to dim a printer object and try to set the PDFCreator printer to landscape orientation, but to no avail. I might be doing something wrong, but I can't see what it is right now.

Cheers ;-).

 

[JamworkS]

Anyone? No one with this problem?

 

[gemma-the-husky]

i've looked, but it isn't really an access problem, and merging PDF's insn't anything I have ever tried to do.

I presume in a muti-page PDF, there HAS to be a standard orientation. Does it matter that some pages are displayed sideways? If you print them out, they will come out OK, won't they?

 

[JamworkS]

i've looked, but it isn't really an access problem, and merging PDF's insn't anything I have ever tried to do.

I presume in a muti-page PDF, there HAS to be a standard orientation. Does it matter that some pages are displayed sideways? If you print them out, they will come out OK, won't they?

Hiya, thank you for your reply.

To answer your last question, NO, they won't come out right, because they are prepared for landscape mode and it merges them into portrait, so at the end, the final result is like getting a "squeezed-in PDF", it's unreadable.

And YES I knew it wasn't an Access issue. It's more a PDFCreator issue, but their forum it's not very good, they never answer any thread. I posted it here just in case anybody else came through the same problem.

Again, thank you very much.

 

[CBrighton]

To confirm, rather than displaying them sideways it is squashing them down like watching a widescreen film on a non-widescreen screen?

I also haven't done anything like this, just trying to make sure anyone who does can clearly see your issue.

 

[JamworkS]

To confirm, rather than displaying them sideways it is squashing them down like watching a widescreen film on a non-widescreen screen?

I also haven't done anything like this, just trying to make sure anyone who does can clearly see your issue.

Thank you for your answer.

Yes, that's a perfect description, I couldn't have said it better .

The thing is that if I manually choose the printer settings of PDFCreator's Printer (not the program, the actual printer in Control Panel) and set it to Landscape, then it comes out fine. But obviously I don't want that, I want it to be done with code, a more profesional way.

And last thing, needless to say, that with the "default" settings of that printer (portrait), any portrait (vertical) documents, are joined perfectly, read and print fine .

Again, thank you for your answers.

 

[JamworkS]

Any ideas? ;-).

 

[gemma-the-husky]

not really - it's obviously a pdf creator issue, not an access one.

 

[JamworkS]

not really - it's obviously a pdf creator issue, not an access one.

Yeah, thought so, but they're forum is not very good, so I will have to do it manually ;-).

Cheers.

 

[sxschech]

Not sure if this code will help for combining PDF since it is used with Adobe Acrobat, but it does keep the protrait items portrait and the landscape items landscape when combined.


http://www.khk.net/wordpress/2009/03/04/adobe-acrobat-and-vba-an-introduction/

I have modified that code to loop through the pdf reports to be merged from Access, but if the above doesn't work with PDFCreator, then no point in proceeding. In tools references see if you are able to set a reference to Acrobat (Adobe Acrobat Type Library).

 

[LPurvis]

Stephen Lebans' PDF code samples includes a method for combining pre-existing PDFs into a new one.
www.lebans.com/reporttopdf.htm
You'll need to download the two DLLs that the same uses too. (They don't need to be registered - merely positioned.)

Cheers.

 

[JamworkS]

Not sure if this code will help for combining PDF since it is used with Adobe Acrobat, but it does keep the protrait items portrait and the landscape items landscape when combined.


http://www.khk.net/wordpress/2009/03/04/adobe-acrobat-and-vba-an-introduction/

I have modified that code to loop through the pdf reports to be merged from Access, but if the above doesn't work with PDFCreator, then no point in proceeding. In tools references see if you are able to set a reference to Acrobat (Adobe Acrobat Type Library).

Cheers, I'll have a look later.

 

[JamworkS]

Ok, I've had a look trough it and I see no option in your program to change or maintain the orientation of the page.

 

[JamworkS]

Stephen Lebans' PDF code samples includes a method for combining pre-existing PDFs into a new one.
www.lebans.com/reporttopdf.htm
You'll need to download the two DLLs that the same uses too. (They don't need to be registered - merely positioned.)

Cheers.

Thank you, but I don't want to add DLLs to the package, I want to be able to use what I have. I'm sure there is a way to do it, but don't know how.

Any more ideas?.

 

[vbaInet]

We have lots of reports that we print out in PDF format thanks to the DoCmd.OutputTo command.

I think you should step back a bit. These reports already exist in your database. Why don't you look for a way to combine all of them into one report then output the combined report to pdf?

This is where subreports come in handy.

 

[JamworkS]

thank you for your answers, but the problem is when you have reports from different departments.

That's why we get lots of pdfs and we need to join them.

Thank you for your answer.

 

[vbaInet]

thank you for your answers, but the problem is when you have reports from different departments.

But you run the reports right? Or you get sent the pdfs from the different departments?

 

[sxschech]

The code for combining pdfs has nothing to do with page orientation. The page orientation is determined by how the report is printed/saved. If a report is saved as a pdf in landscape it will remain in landscape. If the issue is that you are combining Lettersize/A4 with Legal/A5, I haven't tried that to see if differing paper sizes keep their respective size when combined, but that is different than orientation. If I have time, I'll try the code to combine various paper sizes to see what happens and let you know.

 

[JamworkS]

Thank you all for the answers.

I'll be anxously waiting for your code.

Cheers.