Printing Problem Access 2003

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Guest

I have a thread from late February on this topic, and still have not gotten it resovled.

I'm hoping someone can assist with this, since it is holding us us in upgrading our in house db front end from Access 97 to Access 2003

In a nut shell, landscape reports are either dislplaying correctly and printing portrait, or displaying and printing portrait, (when they should be landscape)

Today I tested one system printing to an HP 2200, and it exhibited the above problem. However, the same system printing the same report to an HP 5SI printed correctly

The Access 97 version of this database never had any such issues. I have tried all kinds of things from recreating the reports, turning off autocorrect, and much more (this has been going on for over a month now), and I have also seen messages from others experiencing this same problem. I am left with the suspicion this is a bug in Access, since it occurs randomly (or so it seems)

It is somewhat frustrating as I have an Access 2003 runtime ready to go, and around 75 users waiting for it. However, I feel like I would be asking for trouble rolling this out with the potential of many users having problems with their reports

If anyone has any suggestions or can help in any way, I'd be most grateful

The previous thread, which is not getting a response, has the subject "Strange Printer behavior"

Thanks for any help

Tom
 
Hi Tom,

Currently I am pinging Orlanzo and we will get back here as soon as
possible. Thanks very much for your patience.

Best regards,
Yanhong Huang
Microsoft Community Support

Get Secure! ¨C www.microsoft.com/security
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
 
I'm still investigating my problem but I've found that SOME of my landscape reports switch to portrait yet they print landscape. Bizzarre

I've found that once I go into the page setup and set that to landscape, the value holds for the rest of the session. The setting in the report seems to ignore the landscape setting until it is explicitly set

As with Tom - the reports worked fine in Acc97

I am currently testing the theory that a new AccXP file, with all objects (modules, forms, queries etc) + portrait reports imported into it will work fine. Once I've done that, I'll try recreating the landscape reports to see what happens

If I create a new landscape report in a new AccXP file, it will work everytime. Something seems to go wrong in the conversion process from Acc97 to AccXP

Gary C
 
Gary

Hopefully we'll get some assistance from the folks at Microsoft. There does appear to be a real problem

I'm waiting to hear from them...

Tom
 
Tom, Gary - good morning to you both!

The issue you are encountering is the result of the print driver. It has
not been found to a problem with Microsoft Access. We are aware of the
issue. Hewlett-Packard has also been introduced to everyone's concern.
They will be updating their PCL drivers to resolve the matter. It seemed
to occur when printing using the Print icon which sends information
directly to the printer. However, at the time the problem was reported
with HP 8100 and 8150 models using the PCL. driver.

When using the HP LaserJet 8150 PCL6 printer driver, reports formatted as
landscape preview in portrait on first preview, then, when printed from
preview mode, print in portrait the first time, then print landscape the
next time until the report is closed and reopened. The problem only occurs
when printing from the Print icon, which sends information directly to the
printer. When choosing Print... from the menu, which displays the printer
information, the report prints landscape every time. The non PCL6 driver
does not exhibit the problem.

The problem occurs when the report was originally created using a different
printer.

I do not know if HP has released an updated driver to the public. You will
need to ensure you have their updated driver by contacting HP directly.
They can provide you with more information regarding the drivers
availability. It was reported to them in January. So, the update may not
yet be released.

In issues such as this, you can perform a simple test to distinguish
whether the issue is with Microsoft Access or the print driver. Install
the Generic Text Only print driver. Set it as your system's default
printer. You will also want to ensure the report is set to use the default
printer. Once complete, attempt to reproduce the behavior. If the issue
does not occur, the problem is with the driver; otherwise, their may be a
problem with Microsoft Access. For your own piece of mind, I would
encourage each of you to assess this hypothesis. Let me know what you find.

Additionally, as I recommended in the previous thread, the PostScript
driver (if available) is a good alternative. I have often seen matters
with the PCL driver resolved by using the PostScript equivalent. Have
either of you had an opportunity to test this as a workaround?

The problem might also be alleviated if the user opens the report in
design view, chooses Page Setup, and, without making any changes, chooses
OK in Page Setup, then chooses Yes when prompted to save design changes to
the report. From that point forward, the report will print in landscape
even after closing/reopening Access.


I hope this provides each of you to work through your current hurdles and
relieves some of your frustration. We do try to do all we can to ensure
these issues never occur and when they do - react accordingly. Please be
assured that we are listening and attempting to make your computing and
development experience a favorable one.

Do let me know if their are any continuing concerns!!

Best regards,
Orlanzo Ross
Support Engineer, Access
Microsoft Product Support Services
 
Thanks for the help Orlanzo. Using the generic printer driver has resolved my problem so as you suggest, it does seem to be printer driver related. I have opted not to use postscript drivers at this point but I'm confident that that would also work

I followed your instructions and opened the report in design mode and saving it again - this failed to work

I'd also like to note that the printer nor the printer drivers haven't changed. Our organisation upgraded Off97 to OffXP (SP2) via the upgrade wizard and our print server wasn't affected. We use 88 printers of different design (800+ users)

All that said, I'm off to check the version of my printer drivers (sigh - more than one likely)!!

Thanks Orlanzo. My final post on the matter should be announcing a win

Gary
 
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