Please note that although below I refer to MS Access, most of these programs work within any application since they install a virtual printer that can be used to print from any program (MS Office and beyond).
MS Access 2003 (or earlier)
I will review 2 techniques for producing PDFs of Access Reports
The first, and the one I am most familiar with, is to install a PDF virtual printer. There are numerous PDF creation software programs on the market and depending on your exact need some are more appropriate than others. This said, for general use, the following 3 programs work well and are free.
CuteWriter – Works well
pdfcreator – Works well
pdf995 – Works well but you get a popup every time you use it. You can buy and unlocked version for 10$ (without the popup).
PDFConverter – I was sadly disappointed with this application. For simple text documents it did its’ job, but getting into charts, certificates and more complex documents it failed miserably.
Nitro Reader – Simply astounding! A great, free tool. Reader and PDF Writer all in one. If you do not need the ability to automate your PDF application, this is a great choice! It offers a multitude of settings, security, … Truly a beautiful application.
Then you can simply print to the PDF printer to convert any document (Word, Excel, Access, etc.) into a PDF. To learn how-to control your printers from code take a look at VBA Change Printer code from Albert D. Kallal’s website (near the very top of the page).
As I mentioned before, the programs listed above are for basic use. If you need to implement security and/or modify PDFs then I would recommend you get a professional PDF software. There is no denying that Acrobat is very good at what it does.
The second method is to utilize Stephen Lebans Report to PDF. The benefit to this solution is that you do not need to install a printer driver. So you can easily distribute this solution without requiring the end-user to perform any installation which they may not have the rights to do in the first place. Furthermore, since Stephen has distributed it in an ‘open source’ format, one can easily customize it as required by their unique needs.
For more information, take a look at Creating PDF files from within Microsoft Access from Tony Toews’ website.
For Access 2007
Microsoft finally saw that there was a need for PDF generation and developed an add-in, “2007 Microsoft Office Add-in: Microsoft Save as PDF or XPS”, for the entire Office Suite. So you can now simply download it, install it and print to it like a normal printer. You can download the add-in at: