Private Sub PrintPDFs(PDFArray As Variant)
'' Accepts one dimensional array PrintPDFs containing paths to .PDF files to be printed,
'' then silently prints them using DDE. Acrobat Reader does not support OLE, and silent
'' printing through the pdf.oxc has some issues in v5.1 and higher
''
'' pdf.ocx is an unsupported, non-developement tool that is subject to change in functionality.
'' Under Acrobat 5.1 and higher, a warning dialog is displayed each time printAllFit() is called.
'' If "Do not ask me again" is selected, printing from script will *fail* unless the user opens
'' acrobat reader, goes to tools>options and "Resets all warnings".
'' "Do not ask me again" is stored in:
'' HKCU\Software\Adobe\Acrobat Reader\5.0\AVAlert\cCheckbox\cEWH\iWarnScriptPrintAll
'' HKCU\Software\Adobe\Acrobat Reader\6.0\AVAlert\cCheckbox\cEWH\iWarnScriptPrintAll
''
'' This sub requires:
'' - PDFArray starts at row 0, not row 1
'' - TextBox txtAcrobatDDE
'' - declaration of API function FindExecutable
''
'' ** WILL NOT WORK FROM AN ACTIVEX DLL **
''
On Error GoTo ErrHandler
Dim Error282Count As Integer '' Count of "Can't open DDE channel" errors
Dim AcroDDEFailed As Boolean '' Set to true if a DDE connection cannot be established
Dim sPDFPath As String '' Path to a PDF file
Dim sCmd As String '' DDE command
Dim lStatus As Long '' response from ShellExecute command
Dim n As Integer '' for iterating
Const Max282Errors = 6 '' Number of times we will ignore "Can't open DDE channel" errors
'' before accepting the fact that Acrobat is not started. We need
'' to test more than once, because it might just be busy loading
Dim sAcroPath As String '' Path to acrobat, determined by FindExecutable
Dim bCloseAcrobat As Boolean '' If we open acrobat, we will close it when we are done
'' If acrobat is already running (and hidden), shelling it will cause it to be shown.
'' We do not want that. So try a DDE connect, which will fail if acrobat is not running
'' I have looked at other API means of testing this, but it may be running as a process (no window)
'' and there does not seem to be many graceful ways of testing for this.
Error282Count = Max282Errors '' we only need to try once to see if it is already running.
AcroDDEFailed = False '' ErrHandler will set to true if Acro is not running
txtAcrobatDDE.LinkMode = 0 '' Close any current DDE Link
txtAcrobatDDE.LinkTopic = "acroview|control" '' Acrobat's DDE Application|Topic
txtAcrobatDDE.LinkMode = 2 '' Try to establish 'Manual' DDE Link. This will fail
'' if Acrobat is not ready (or in this case, not running)
If AcroDDEFailed = True Then
'' We could not set our linkmode, so Acro is not running. Find it and launch it
sPDFPath = PDFArray(0) '' grab the first pdf path. We assume this file exists
[COLOR=green] '' Use the FindExecutable API function to grab the path to our PDF handler.
'' This should be Acrobat Reader or Acrobat, but it might be something else.
'' When we try to DDE link to it, non-acrobat will error out. This is ok.[/color][COLOR=blue]
sAcroPath = String(128, 32)
lStatus = FindExecutable(sPDFPath, vbNullString, sAcroPath)
If lStatus <= 32 Then
MsgBox "Acrobat could not be found on this computer. Printing cancelled", vbCritical, "Problem" [/color]
[COLOR=green]
'Added to test values on Windows 7 machine[/color][COLOR=blue]
MsgBox "lStatus = " & lStatus & ", sAcroPath = " & sAcroPath
Exit Sub
End If [/color]
'' Launch the PDF handler
lStatus = Shell(sAcroPath, vbHide)
If (lStatus >= 0) And (lStatus <= 32) Then
MsgBox "An error occured launching Acrobat. Printing cancelled", vbCritical, "Problem"
Exit Sub
End If
bCloseAcrobat = True '' We will try to close Acrobat when we are done
End If
PauseFor 2 '' Lets take a break here to let Acrobat finish loading
Error282Count = 0 '' This time, we will allow all acceptable tries, as
AcroDDEFailed = False '' Acrobat is running, but may be busy loading its modules
txtAcrobatDDE.LinkMode = 0
txtAcrobatDDE.LinkTopic = "acroview|control"
txtAcrobatDDE.LinkTimeout = 2500 ' 3 minute timeout delay. Should be moer than enough
txtAcrobatDDE.LinkMode = 2
If AcroDDEFailed = True Then
MsgBox "An error occured connecting to Acrobat. Printing cancelled", vbCritical, "Problem"
Exit Sub
End If
'' Send the PDF's to the printer. In my testing, this was very immediate
For n = 0 To UBound(PDFArray)
'' We need to put the long filenames in quotes. Again, we assume these file exist
sPDFPath = PDFArray(n)
sCmd = "[FilePrintSilent(" & Chr(34) & sPDFPath & Chr(34) & ")]"
txtAcrobatDDE.LinkExecute sCmd
Next
If bCloseAcrobat = True Then
'' [AppExit()] causes memory errors with v6.0 and 6.1, so avoid closing these versions
If InStr(sAcroPath, "6.0") = 0 Then
sCmd = "[AppExit()]"
txtAcrobatDDE.LinkExecute sCmd
End If
End If
'' Close the DDE Connection
txtAcrobatDDE.LinkMode = 0
Exit Sub
ErrHandler:
If Err.Number = 282 Then '' Can't open DDE channel
'' This error may happen because Acro is not fully loaded.
'' Give it Max282Errors attempts before returning AcroDDEFailed = True
Error282Count = Error282Count + 1
If Error282Count <= Max282Errors Then
PauseFor 3
Resume
Else
AcroDDEFailed = True
Resume Next
End If
End If
MsgBox "Error in PrintPDFs sub of " & Me.Name & " form. Error# " & Err.Number & " " & Err.Description & "."
End Sub
