Networking Issue Printing Reports

[Stonehill]

Hi There,

I just completed an Access DB to be used as an invoicing program for a Travel Agency. There is a total of 5 user's accessing it simultaneously. I have left it open without any workgroups.

It is currently on a shared folder within the Network that each of them access via a shortcut. Everything works fine, until the print out a report or invoice (which uses the reports as well). The message that constantly pops up is that the Default printer set for the report is unavailable and forces the user to change it. However, if you set it to te exact same printer, it will print successfully. The user's have to do this everytime a different user tries to print. This is unacceptable in terms of having the user's constantly change it to the printer over and over.

Has anyone had a printer issue like this before using access? Constant unavailability? It seems like each instance of access is holding the printer's resources and not releasing them. Is it because I have not set the database's workgroups?

Please help if possible I would really appreciate it.

Sincerely,
Jordan

 

[SMerrill]

You are sharing the database that contains the report object among five users.
Use the Database Splitter wizard to separate the reports from the data. This creates a second database called the back-end which just contains tables, and replaces the tables in your (front-end) database with linked tables.

Share the back-end database on the network drive, but make a physical copy of the front-end on each user's local hard drive. Keep a master copy of the front-end on the shared drive, but don't let anyone know where it is. It is just for installation purposes. Make a (INSTALL.BAT) installation file that copies the master copy over the local copy. This way, you can update their front-end any time you need to by instructing all users to double-click on the batch file.

This not only minimizes network traffic, but it allows everyone to set their own printer in their personal copy of the report object.



--Shaun Merrill

 

[SMerrill]

Oh...and make a shortcut to the local copy for the users to launch it with. Security is a separate issue.

--Shaun Merrill

 

[Stonehill]

Sean,

Thanks for the reply, however the problem is that the reports are generated on the fly. You enter the iformation into a form and then print the report since it is the invoice itself.

Would this still work?

Thanks,
Jordan

 

[SMerrill]

Yep.
Your design doesn't matter.
This is a general case.

--Shaun Merrill

 

[MrMcFestoe]

Are your customers using seperate printers ? ihad the same problem and installed a printer on the machine that had the db on it and set that printer up as a network printer and it worked fine.