Delivering Access Reports via the web in PDF

[neilcartwright]

Hi

I'm new here but have a problem I hope you can help me with.

We have a bespoke system which uses Access 2002 on the frontend and SQL 2000 Enterprise on the backend. We have a large number of complex access reports which are used to display data as certificates. These reports show data from at least 10 tables and utilise many sub-reports. Crucially we use the data to determine to some degree what is (and isn't) shown on the reports. Our certificates are signed electronically and this is handled in the report by turning images (WMF files) of signatures on and off. If a valid date and employee ID exists in a particular field then the graphic appears, otherwise it does not.

We have a requirement to deliver these certificate reports to clients via a website. Currently this is handled by having a copy of the database which contains the reports running a loop and printing the require reports to WIN2PDF to create the files. The main issue with this is that when a lot of certificates are signed in a short period of time WIN2PDF falls behind and there is a lag in the PDF production which causes problems for our clients.

Ideally we would be able to produce the reports on demand in PDF format as the client clicks the appropriate link. Again ideally I would like to achieve this without using a different reporting tool (because I wouldn't want the learning curve of another report engine or the cost).

Has anyone got any ideas how I might get from a web request for a certificate to a dynamically created PDF, based on an access report? Clearly I would need to feed in a parameter for the certificate to determine the dataset.

Any help would be greatly appreicated.

Thanks

Neil

 

[CautionMP]

If the report (pdf) format is pretty static you might consider using a *.pdf template and an fdf/xfdf data file created by the database to populate it.

Esentially the database would only need to create a fdf/xfdf (text) file that contains the relevent data then Adobe will manage the merging of this data with the *.pdf template. Since the database only needs to create a text file this process goes very fast.

You could also use some type of active server page to create the fdf/xfdf file and the client machine should spawn the Acrobat reader and do the data merge on demand based on the file extension.

Hope this helps,
CMP

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