I need DataReport to output in PDF format 2

[dotnetprogrammer]

I need DataReport to output in PDF format.
Any suggestion? Any help is appreciated!

 

[Alt255]

If you have Adobe installed you would select Adobe PDF Writer as the active printer and send your output to it. I don't have the Adobe documentation on hand to check on ways to automate the process of writing the PDF from within your app but it shouldn't be much harder than writing to a standard printer.

 

[dotnetprogrammer]

Alt255,
Thanks for your response! I wonder if Adobe makes Acrobat "Output Engine" in ActiveX format (or some kind of plug in, like Seagate Crystal Reports does,) which would allow me to generate Acrobat document/output from within VB.
I appreciate your input regarding the matter!

 

[dellyjm]

When you find this out tell me, i've been researching for quite some time.

 

[Alt255]

That's an easy one. Click here to download the Acrobat Software Development Kit:

http://partners.adobe.com/asn/developer/acrosdk/download/win/winR3SDK.exe

Hope this helps all concerned.

 

[Alt255]

Sorry about posting what may have been a lame tip. My company is in the process of converting its official documents to the PDF format for easy access and control over the company intranet. I had thought it would be handy to create a VB app to manage and manipulate the docs and, I must confess, I was pretty excited during the 20mb download of the Acrobat SDK.

My excitement wore off when I found that the SDK presumes the use of C or JAVA. Adobe includes a few wimpy VB sample projects (they show ways to open PDFs in child windows, search for text, insert controls in a document, etc...) but implementing some of the more useful features could require much more research than one might assume.

I don't mind the research but, in this instance, there is little time for blind experimentation or plodding through countless HTMLs and PDFs looking for an answer that may or may not exist.

Does anybody know of a web-site slanted toward Acrobat VB developers?

 

[dotnetprogrammer]

Well Alt255 thanks for response again. In the mean time I will continue to Print using Acrobat Distiller or Acrobat Writer (resultant size seems to be about the same).
Once again, I appreciate your input regarding this issue!

 

[dellyjm]

How do you avoid user interaction with regards to saving the file? What I mean is creaying a PDF and forcing the file name and saving as it were from VB.

 

[dotnetprogrammer]

>>> saving as it were from VB.

That was exactly what I like to do! I like to know the answer as well.

 

[dellyjm]

I've been trying to find this out for months.

 

[Alt255]

Well... I know it can be done... the Adobe license agreement for the SDK specifically prohibits creating an application that both, allows the user to view an Acrobat file and allows the user to write to an Acrobat file.

We just haven't figured out the second part, yet.

 

[Alt255]

Maybe I should take back my last post. I just spent a couple of hours at

http://www.acrobuddies.com

(a help forum for Acrobat users and developers). Of the 600 or so posts relating to Visual Basic, one of the most common questions was "How do I write a PDF file using VB?". The most common answer was "The Acrobat SDK won't let you do that. You need to use a plugin written in C." I don't take that as a definitive answer but I interpret it as a hint that perhaps we are barking up the wrong tree.

There are some tasks that VB was never intended to perform. Here are links to some of the plugins mentioned at acrobuddies (none of these are free and some cost hundreds of dollars).

http://www.activepdf.com

http://www.digapp.com

http://www.pdflib.com

http://www.pdfstore.com

You can also find a good set of programming resources at

http://www.codecuts.com.

Good luck and God help us all.

 

[Deadline]

Try this....

thread223-122096 Thank you...
RR

 

[genomon]

We use the ACG PDF and Mail Library add-in which exposes some great VB methods and properties and a reasonably concise help file. I don't know what it's price is, but my boss bought it, so it HAS to be cheap. Also can't send you to a website, but a quick web search ought to turn up something. (We actually automate some production reports to send themselves out as .pdf e-mail attachments, all thru VB & VBA[Access]). Good luck.....
-Geno

 

[vaxman9]

Check out:

http://www.amyuni.com

and the PDF converter.

It's not inexpensive, but it is a royalty-free developer's solution. It works very well and gives you program control over output.

If you are not looking to distribute PDF capabilities, Acrobat Writer/Distiller would probably be the way to go.

HTH

 

[S3066]

Hi Group,

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but the bottom line -- or at least one of the bottom lines to this thread -- is the following:

If you want to create (or convert flat files to) type ".pdf," and you only have Acrobat Reader, accomplishing such a ".pdf" creation/conversion task in VB is impossible without purchasing other software?

Thanks for your time, SL.

 

[kindred]

Hi,

There's a very inexpensive reporting tool that will view the data and also allow you to export to pdf. The costs for either the std or professional version are very low. The product is ActiveReports by DataDynamics.

http://www.datadynamics.com

Stephen

 

[fwatanabe]

I don't know if this helps anyone, but I had posted a question about the Crystal Report Viewer & exporting from that to PDF. I know the initial request in this thread was DataReport to PDF, but if any of you have the option of using Crystal instead, this might help...

thread222-253017