For all of you with Paper Size issues

I have had a paper size (Legal/Landscape) issue with a report in a .mde
application for some time. After several unsuccessful attempts to find a
solution in the Newsgroups I pestered Microsoft support until I got the
corrrect answer and again an unsuccessful/no solution. The issue involves
something called prtDevMode, this is supposedly some group of control
characters obtained from the print drivers of the default printer. It does
not matter how you have defined the report before converting to a .mde,
Microsoft claims they cannot change the paper size code in the .mde/runtime
application. This situation exists in ALL versions of ACCESS, there are no
service packs that fix it and it has not been fixed in OFFICE/ACCESS 2003 as
MS Support originally tried to tell me. I don't know all of the background
code of course but it does not make sense that you can design a report and
save the page orientation correctly and not the paper size. I was just
notified by MS Support that they cannot create a hot fix and there will
probably not be anything done to correct this. They offered another soultion,
they made reference to some code that will let you set the paper size
programmatically but the catch is it only works in a .mdb. Their solution to
protecting mine and your valuable proprietary source code is to distribute a
password protected .mdb. Now I don't know about any of you but I have gone to
the web and downloaded free password cracking software that is designed
specifically to decode ACCESS passwords and they work very well. Personally I
don't think this is an acceptable solution, I'm sure Microsoft would not
distribute any of their proprietary code this way. I suggest that everyone
that is having an issue with this contact Microsoft support and start a case
regarding this issue. it was my impression that they feel there is not enough
need or concern about this BUG to work on it.

Hi cafr

Interesting thread. I've never chased this issue as far as you have, but I'm
not aware of a solution that works with MDE files. Not sure I'd call it a
bug: more the omission of a feature that's rather basic and quite limiting.

IMHO, a missing feature does not rank as importantly as the many bugs where
Access actually gives you wrong answers, e.g.:
- incorrect comparison:
http://members.iinet.net.au/~allenbrowne/bug-11.html
- missing records:
http://members.iinet.net.au/~allenbrowne/bug-10.html
- basic sorting wrong:
http://members.iinet.net.au/~allenbrowne/bug-08.html
- wrong display of data:
http://members.iinet.net.au/~allenbrowne/bug-06.html
- filtering wrong in forms and reports:
http://members.iinet.net.au/~allenbrowne/bug-02.html
and so on.

Surely a program that gives you wrong answers is worse than one that
crashes, because you can't trust its results. If Access crashes, they fix
it. If it gives wrong answers, they don't care unless it has a 'business
impact', i.e. enough people do complain.

AFAIK, the PrtMip stuff works only with the MDB as you say. It's not the
simplest thing to work with, and MS got the Help file examples wrong in A95,
A97 and 2000, and I gave up checking them after that. For anyone researching
that approach, see:
http://www.microsoft.com/AccessDev/A...s/GetzCh10.HTM

--
Allen Browne - Microsoft MVP. Perth, Western Australia.
Tips for Access users - http://allenbrowne.com/tips.html
Reply to group, rather than allenbrowne at mvps dot org.

"cafr2000" wrote in message
...
I have had a paper size (Legal/Landscape) issue with a report in a .mde
application for some time. After several unsuccessful attempts to find a
solution in the Newsgroups I pestered Microsoft support until I got the
corrrect answer and again an unsuccessful/no solution. The issue involves
something called prtDevMode, this is supposedly some group of control
characters obtained from the print drivers of the default printer. It does
not matter how you have defined the report before converting to a .mde,
Microsoft claims they cannot change the paper size code in the
.mde/runtime
application. This situation exists in ALL versions of ACCESS, there are no
service packs that fix it and it has not been fixed in OFFICE/ACCESS 2003
as
MS Support originally tried to tell me. I don't know all of the background
code of course but it does not make sense that you can design a report and
save the page orientation correctly and not the paper size. I was just
notified by MS Support that they cannot create a hot fix and there will
probably not be anything done to correct this. They offered another
soultion,
they made reference to some code that will let you set the paper size
programmatically but the catch is it only works in a .mdb. Their solution
to
protecting mine and your valuable proprietary source code is to distribute
a
password protected .mdb. Now I don't know about any of you but I have gone
to
the web and downloaded free password cracking software that is designed
specifically to decode ACCESS passwords and they work very well.
Personally I
don't think this is an acceptable solution, I'm sure Microsoft would not
distribute any of their proprietary code this way. I suggest that everyone
that is having an issue with this contact Microsoft support and start a
case
regarding this issue. it was my impression that they feel there is not
enough
need or concern about this BUG to work on it.