Report Keeps Forgetting Printer Settings

[M_S_Jones]

Hi all,

A DBMS that I developed in Access 2002 has recently been implemented for users to use with Access 2007. We had tested it using 2007 before we implemented it and found it to be entirely compatible. However, as time's progressed I keep getting called out for the same reoccurring problem: two of the reports print small stickers and thus are sent to a label printer rather than the default A4 laser printer. This works without any problems usually, but every now and then (it happened yesterday and again just now), the report prints out of the A4 printer instead.

When I view the page layout in print preview the settings have been reset to the default printer. So I change to the label printer, change the margins etc and all is fine. But no doubt tomorrow just before lunch time I will be called back for the same issue. I do not work with the system so I don't know of any pattern, but the people who work with it claim that it just stops working arbitrarily. Can any one think of a reason why this would happen? Or how I could resolve this issue?

Thanks,

Matt

 

[jackryan]

Hello,

Wayback 2 years ago I think I encountered the same problem, what I've done then was set the default printer properties into A4, on another machine, I found out that the user is playing with the printer settings changing the default A4 into 8.5 x 11, Hopefully this might help you.

 

[M_S_Jones]

Thanks for the reply.

The users don't have access to the printer settings, I locked them out of all that kind of stuff. They just press a button and the report prints, no printer settings displayed or anything. Furthermore, the main user of the system hadn't ever used a mouse until she started using this system - I think changing the default printer settings is a bit advanced for her. Any other ideas?

Thanks again,

Matt

 

[BarryMK]

For what it's worth, I get this happening occasionally at our remote sites. For us it seems to stem from major network changes by our IT dept over which I have no control. The only recourse I have is to open up each front end, open the report in design view and re-set the default printer from the Page tab.

 

[jackryan]

Yup I think opening each report design view and re-setting the default printer will do the job.

 

[M_S_Jones]

Interestingly enough, if I open the reports in design view, change the printer settings, save the report and then print it, it ignores the new settings and prints from the default printer. The only way I can get the report to save the changes is by changing the settings in print preview mode and then saving. The changed settings then apply to the report thereafter (until it resets itself.)

So the solution is to just change the settings in the front end of every system? Even though it seems to reset itself on a daily basis? - Surely changing the settings of the front end of every PC every day isn't the most efficient solution there is?

 

[jackryan]

Can you try changing the settings on your users computer using your Admin account?

 

[M_S_Jones]

Yes, that's what I've been doing; it still seems to reset itself. I've just been looking online for some code to specify the printer. Can you or anyone else tell me if and if so, how, to specify a printer to print from in the code that prints a report? The affected reports don't open for the users to view on the screen, they go straight to printer. So is it possible that I could use some code to specify on print that the other printer is to be used? I saw the code below online, can something along these lines be used?

Dim prtDefaultPrinter As Printer
Set prtDefaultPrinter = Application.Printer
Application.Printer = Application.Printers(REPORT_PRINTER)
DoCmd.OpenReport strReportName, acViewNormal
Application.Printer = prtDefaultPrinter

 

[M_S_Jones]

I've been looking up Printer Objects, but that all looks very long-winded too. Surely there's a concise way of coding to print with an installed and fully functional printer rather that isn't the default one. Any ideas anyone?

 

[M_S_Jones]

I've found a work around, at least I'm fairly sure that I have (I haven't tested it on the users' machines yet, but it's working on my PC.) First a little background about the system: The number of stickers printed from the label printer depends upon a number that the user inserts into an input box when prompted. This number is then used as the number of times that a loop in the code is executed (the body of the loop prints the report.) Around that loop I have added the following code: (Where "Printer_Name" is the name of the label printer (it's not, but for the same of the code let's say that it is.))

Dim strDefaultPrinter As String

strDefaultPrinter = Application.Printer.DeviceName
Set Application.Printer = Application.Printers("PRINTER_NAME")

[LOOP]

Set Application.Printer = Application.Printers(strDefaultPrinter)

That seems to work for me. I hope it can be of use to anyone else who encounters this problem. By the way, I've changed the settings so that the report hasn't got any particular printer settings assigned to it, so that code's doing all the work.

 

[gemma-the-husky]

it may be a windows privileges issue

perhaps the user doesnt have privileges to save these changes -i imagine they must get written to the registry

i have a system like this that keeps reverting to letter instead of A4, and giving me blank pages - i'm sure its related to this sort of issue

 

[M_S_Jones]

Thanks for the suggestion, but I don't think it is that, because I reset it about 12:00 yesterday and the user of that front end continued to use it until 15:30 without any problems. It may be something that they're doing down there, they are by no means advanced users, they may be mashing the keyboard sometimes and triggering hotkeys; I don't know. But at least if I code the change it should prevent such things causing a problem.

 

[flect]

I have had this problem since installing 2007 - It is a known bug in Access 2007 - It was not fixed in SP1

very recently (last 2 weeks or so) Microsoft has released a hotfix for this issue.

There is a link to the hotfix but you need to submit a request to them for the actual link to the download which takes a few hours as the patch has not "gone through full Microsoft regression testing."

I have applied the patch and everything now seems to be working correctly


Patch/Issue info is at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/950488
You can request the patch from http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=6294451

Hope that helps!!

 

[M_S_Jones]

Thank you very much for that link. I installed the patch early Friday afternoon and we haven't had any problems as of yet, so hopefully it has worked. Thanks again!

 

[racer25]

Hi

I have tried 3 times to get the chumps in MS to reply to the request for the hotfix.

Is there anywhere else I can obtain this....

 

[andyman68]

I requested the hotfix 950488 but cannot get it to install. It starts installing and then I get the message "Hotfix for Office (KB950488) has stopped working. Windows is checking for a solution to this problem. A problem caused the program to stop working correctly. Windows will close the program and notify you if a solution is available." A second popup: "The installation of this package failed."

Any ideas as to what I should do now?

 

[flect]

Not sure - Have you already installed SP1?
if not, maybe try installing it and then the hotfix.

or if you already have - try uninstalling SP1 and then try the hotfix.

 

[M_S_Jones]

Do you have multiple versions of Access installed? I have 2002 and 2007, but I mostly use 2002. I seem to remember that when I first tried to install the hotfix it yielded an error. Wondering if it was because 2002 was the last version I used, I opened a document in 2007, waited for it to configure itself for use and open the document, then closed it and tried again with the hotfix and it then worked.

 

[andyman68]

I have a new computer with only Access 2007, but I previously used Access 2003 on my other computer.

I tried to install SP1, but already had it. In order to uninstall it, I would have to remove all the 2007 Office programs. We use a site license and I am unable to remove them. I tried e-mailing support, but they won't accept my Product Identification Number. I guess I will pay the $49.00 for help.

 

[andyman68]

I've solved the problem. Since I got my new computer with Windows Vista, I sometimes get "Error 1327: Invalid Drive R:\" when installing updates and software but can easily access your R drive through the Computer icon and see it is available in a command prompt using a net use command.

If I look at the drives via command prompt run as administrator, the network drives are unavailable. Installing software on Vista requires administrative rights and if the software is not known to Vista, it seems to block access to the network drives to protect the network if the software may be a virus or malware.

I always have to run a Net Use command when this happens to map the drives.
Net use R: \\servername\username and press enter

With the hotfix I didn't get the Invalid R Drive error, but started wondering if that was the problem. I ran Net Use and it worked!