Hi everyone,

(I'm very new to this forum and I apologize in advance if this has already been covered. I'm not used to the search methods here, so if I'm hitting on something already covered, by all means, it would be a big help if you could tell me how you found the topic, Thanks 8) )

I am having trouble with a making a report layout available to other users. I have written a report for a specific label writer I am adding to a a widely used app of mine. The application is well established and the most recent request has been to include a provision for printing information on sticky labels from a Dymo LabelWriter 450 (other label writers may follow).

To develop the report in question, a label printer was hooked up to a USB port on my computer and set up as per normal with Windows XP. I then created and saved a new report (rptLabels_Dymo_LabelWriter450). In design mode, I went to the menu item File->Page Setup. On the Page Setup dialog, I went to the Page tab and chose "Use a Specific Printer" and chose the label printer I have hooked to my USB port. I also chose a specific Paper Size that came with the printer setup, in this case, 30327 File Folder. The resultant margins(top, bottom, left, right) were set by the predefined selection in the previous sentence. It was necessary to choose Landscape to get the information set on the label. Please see the following screen shots for the Page Setup dialog and a sample label:

(URL is Page Setup Page Tab ) (IMG:http://www.ucs.mun.ca/~tmarshal/tma/ReportSetUp1.JPG)

(URL is Page Setup Margins Tab ) (IMG:http://www.ucs.mun.ca/~tmarshal/tma/ReportSetUp2.JPG)

(URL is Sample Label ) (IMG:http://www.ucs.mun.ca/~tmarshal/tma/Label_Example.JPG)

As you can probably guess, none of these settings work on other user's computers unless they have the label printer plugged into their same USB port. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/iconfused.gif)

So I figured I needed to do away with the Specific Printer choice on the Page tab of Page Setup and go with default printer. Instead of printing directly to a printer, I'll have it go to a preview (which i really don't want to do) and then have the user select print and choose their label printer. The problem is, my default printer won't allow me to have the margins required by the actual printer label which can be seen in the second image above showing margins.

Please help with this, thanks in advance,

The normal procedure is to share the label printer across the network, each workstation have a link to it under Printer Setup, then the drivers for the device need to be installed on each workstation. Access needs the drivers on each workstation so the report can be rendered for printing.

Thanks, John, that helps.

One kink in this though is that the users of our network are spread over a number of buildings. I would like the labels to be printable at each user's work station where s/he has a label printer right there with them. I don't want 100s of labels printed by individual users to become 1000s of labels pouring out of the Dymo printer here beside me.

This post has been edited by HangaShore: Jul 24 2010, 07:53 PM

An idea...

Have a configuration option where the individual user at each workstation can select the printer for the labels. On change of the value, store it in a Defaults table. When print time comes for a label, reset the Default Printer to the label printer, print the label, then restore the Default Printer. The following links demonstrate how to use the Access Printer Object. Pay close attention to the link ending with "2002" which demonstrates how to get a list of printers configured on the workstation the FE database is running from.

Programming Printer Settings in Microsoft Access 2002
ACC: How to Change Printer for a Report Using Code
Change Default Printer on the fly
Change Printers from Code
Changing printer settings for a report in Access

This method is ideal, as the user defines the Printer rather than the Developer.