Office 2007 creates PDF's

There is a significant new feature in Office 2007 that may encourage users to migrate to the 2007 version - the ability to create PDF files without requiring the full version of Adobe Acrobat. This is especially useful with Access 2007.

In previous Office versions, you would need to install a PDF-creation program such as Acrobat, pdf995, or other program. Those programs generally install themselves as a printer, so for an Access report you would need to create a copy of the desired report, and set the default printer to be the PDF creator. Even then, the PDF program would prompt the user to navigate to the desired drive & folder, and supply a name for the PDF to be generated.

It should be noted that with previous versions, it is possible to use the same report, but run some complex code to modify the PrintDev settings for the report to "print" to the PDF creator; this code can be found in Ken Getz's Access Developer's Handbook, among other sources. But this is no longer necessary with Office 2007.

Microsoft has published a free add-in to create either PDF or XPS format files for Office 2007. The file name is SaveAsPDFandXPS.exe and if you do a Google search for "Microsoft Save as PDF or XPS" (include the quotes) you should see the link within the first couple of search results.

You will need to validate your copy of Office, and then download & install the add-in. Once you have done that, to print an Access report as a PDF is as simple as can be:

Sub SaveAsPDF(MyReport As String, MyFile As String)
DoCmd.OutputTo acOutputReport, MyReport, acFormatPDF, MyFile
End Sub

Just supply the report name, and the desired full path & filename (which must end with ".PDF"), and the PDF will be created. Note that if the file exists, it will be over-written without warning.