Turning pages into PDF

  • Thread starter Thread starter Dean
  • Start date Start date
D

Dean

I couldn't find a Microsoft group for PDFs so I am asking you folks here. I
assume some of you, like me, like to take EXCEL pages and turn them into
PDFs. I guess I need the PDF writer, or is it distiller, to do that - and
I wonder where I can get a legitimate copy of it relatively cheaply and
within a few days. Somewhere I saw something about edirectsoftware.com.
Does anyone know if this is a good choice? Or any others to recommend?

Thanks much!
Dean
 
Dean,

If you're not using Excel 2007, then you do need something like Distiller.
I got a copy of Adobe Acrobat 7 and it comes with Distiller. It has a
simple little object model that you can interact with to turn Excel data
into PDF.

There are probably non-Adobe options as well but I didn't want to screw
around.

josh
 
Yes, I see that. It suggests something about being tested for EXCEL 2003
and 2007. I only have 2002 but I downloaded the main file and it seems to
work like a charm. I am a little confused as to whether I needed to
download more files, there were five of them (version 9.0.3), one just a
read me file, one with ghostwrite another not, not sure what the others
were, but I just downloaded the ghostwriter one and it seems to work fine.

This is fantastic Ron and I thank you very much. I've wasted tons of time
with EPSV'ing proprietary EXCEL files and deleting macros in order to send
reports to others but it looks like those days are finally over. Is this
software I am supposed to donate money for?

Dean
 
I'm not sure what this has that I don't already now have, so I'm not going
to look further. It's sounds like this takes two steps rather than only one
with the link provided on Ron DeBruin's to Ken Puhl's site for versions
prior to 2007. If you know yours to be better, kindly let me know.

Thanks, Gord!
Dean
 
Dean

Not better, just an alternative.

Gord
I'm not sure what this has that I don't already now have, so I'm not going
to look further. It's sounds like this takes two steps rather than only one
with the link provided on Ron DeBruin's to Ken Puhl's site for versions
prior to 2007. If you know yours to be better, kindly let me know.

Thanks, Gord!
Dean
Click to expand...
 
I was using this PDF Creator all along and being very happy with it. But
now, I cannot highlight three adjacent worksheets and have it create a
3-page PDF file. I am sure I was able to do it before. As soon as I hit
print, it deselects two of the three and creates only a one page PDF. Does
anyone have any idea what my problem might be?

Dean
 
It seems that the problem is that I am now printing in a file that has the
following macro in it.

Private Sub Workbook_BeforePrint(Cancel As Boolean)
Dim wkSht As Worksheet
For Each wkSht In ThisWorkbook.Worksheets
wkSht.PageSetup.RightFooter = "&8Date : " & _
Format(Date, "dd-mmm-yy")
Next wkSht
End Sub

I assume this is what is causing it to deselect the multiple sheets I
highlight when I try to print with PDFCreator. Whether or not you agree,
can someone tell my why I would have been advised to put this macro in "this
Workbook" within my EXCEL file? I recall being told to do it from you folks
as a response to some special problem I was having, but I cannot recall, for
the life of me, what that problem might have been. I don't think I would
have added this macro strictly to automatically populate footers, which is
what it seems to do. Any ideas what I might have been trying to
accomplish?!

Thanks!
Dean
 
From Excel Help:

"Microsoft Excel uses the ampersand to initiate codes for special
formatting in the headers and footers."

I believe the "&8" in your code sets the font size to 8 (can't verify
for sure).

The default behavior in a footer is for "&[Date]" to print as
"9/20/2007", or something similar.
The code you mention puts the current date in the right footer as "Date
: 20-Sep-2007".

If you still need this date in this format on your pages when they are
written to PDFCreator, then I would move this macro code to a standard
code module and connect the routine up to a commandbar button, to be
used just before printing to PDFCreator.

Alternatively, you could get somebody to revise the macro to leave the
selected sheets selected. Hopefully, somebody will answer this thread,
or you could post this as a new question.
 
Hi Dean,

I tested this on my machine (Excel 2000), and it works fine, when printing
to a regular printer. Something somewhere else is unselecting your
worksheets before being printed to the PDF file, as the For each statement
does not change the selection status of the worksheets.

Have you tried stepping through the code in your workbook to see where the
sheets are being deselected?
 
Actually, I notice that it happens sometimes just trying to select two
sheets and print them to a PDF manually. It seems to depend on either the
name of the sheets or something seemingly arbitrary like that. In other
words, I don't think it's the macro now. Sorry.

Thanks!
Dean
 
Do you have any event handlers attached to the worksheets in the workbook?
Right click on each sheet tab, then choose "View Code" from the context
menu. Any code window that is displayed might have the line "Option
Explicit" at the top, but should not have any routines in it (like "Private
Sub Worksheet_Activate", "Private Sub Worksheet_Deactivate", etc.

If they do (have any event handlers like those I mentioned), then those
could be the culprit and might have to be disabled or removed. Click the
"Design Mode" button on the Visual Basic toolbar so that the button remains
depressed.
 
No, nothing there. This file is a grocery list file and in fact I created a
couple of tabs to test it in a very simple file.

Two of the four sheets save to PDF together. But in the case of one of them
with a 3rd tab instead, it asks me for two file names and creates two
one-page files.

Any idea why? The whole thing almost seems random!

Thanks!
Dean
 
Oh and, by the way, in these cases it does not deselect the tab. Also, I
notice that if I try to print the problematic paid to my printer, it prints
them both. It seems to be problem with the PDF Creator program interface.

D
 
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