Publishing multiple copies of selected reports

[Thingame]

Good afternoon,

I am trying to add to a db I inherited. One of the end reports that is produced is a cost breakdown for each end user.

As things stand, the data collates into individual reports which are then grouped into one file and saved via PDF. What I am trying to work out is whether or not I can selectively pick some of those reports to have more than one copy.

In my (kinda confused little) mind, I see a form (within an existing form) that will list all of the end users for a particular scheme and, next to that, be a dropdown that will allow the db user to select how many copies of each report needs to be published. These will then collate merrily into one document to be saved to PDF.

The trouble is...I have no idea where to start.

If someone could give me a nudge in the right direction I'd be grateful.

Many thanks

 

[JHB]

Show what you have used until now!

 

[Thingame]

Hmm, the data is held on a SQL server...plus there is information that may breach data protection...I should have an older version (not held on a server) that holds some dummy information (created for training purposes). I will see if I can remove the live data and post that.

 

[David R]

I don't think Access has the ability yet to string multiple reports together via Export. You could use a (perhaps crushingly slow) Subreport model, or tap into some PDF software that allows Append to Existing. There are several older threads detailing how to do that.

 

[Thingame]

Thanks David. It's possible that I'm not explaining it very well. It is a single report template that will then retrieve information via queries & tables. It will then spit out the finished report for every account allocated to a pre-selected code.

For example:

The first thing the user has to do is select the scheme code. (12345)
Any other selections the user then chooses (import, edit, output data) will be specific to code 12345.

Within that code are, for example, 10 accounts. The account details include an account number, first line address & contribution % as raw data held in tables.

Other tables will hold budget information for every code...some queries are set up to link certain tables to then produce the end reports.

One such report will display the calculated budget for each account that can be saved as a single PDF file.

What I'm looking to create is, instead of an output showing:

Account 1
Account 2
.
.
.
Account 10

Is showing, if selected:

Account 1
Account 2
Account 2
Account 3
.
.
.
Account 10

Kind regards

 

[David R]

Can you elaborate on the purpose behind repeating 2 in that situation? I'm still a little lost.

 

[Thingame]

The reports are issued in the post to account holders and, annoyingly, some of them have reports sent to more than one location. There are multiple documents (not all from Access) that need to be collated. The other documents already add in extra copies but the print / collation process is being held up because the access report doesn't currently do this.

 

[David R]

And it is mission-critical that they all be in one PDF? Because you can have VBA behind a 'run reports' button step through and rerun reports based on a combobox, that's not hard... but they won't be in the same PDF document.

 

[Thingame]

...for now let us assume so. The single copies all come in one file and the other processes in place are based on that assumption. I'd rather try to fix the one over the many.