Print Preview in Access is very similar to Print Preview in other Microsoft Office System products. If you check out your reports carefully in Print Preview, you won’t be in for any major surprises when you print them. But Access also provides a "quick and dirty" preview option called Layout Preview that displays only enough of the report for you to see all the elements. This view often produces a shorter report that is faster to print and provides just enough information to help you refine the layout.
Most people don’t spend a lot of time studying the preview and print options, so in this exercise you will review them, in case there are a few you haven’t tried yet. Then you’ll print a report.
USE the GardenCo database in the practice file folder for this topic. This practice file is located in the My DocumentsMicrosoft PressAccess 2003 SBSReportsPrint folder and can also be accessed by clicking Start/All Programs/Microsoft Press/Access 2003 Step by Step.
OPEN the GardenCo database and acknowledge the safety warning, if necessary.
Open the Alphabetical List of Products report in Design view.
Click the down arrow to the right of the View button to display the list of views.
Each of the three choices—Design view, Print Preview, and Layout Preview—has an associated icon. The Design view icon has a border, and is highlighted with a background color, indicating it is the current view. The Print Preview icon is duplicated on the View button, indicating that it is the default view if you simply click the button rather than display this menu and choose a view. When you are in Design view, both Print Preview and Layout Preview are available.
Click Print Preview.
In the preview environment, the Formatting and Report Design toolbars are hidden, the toolbox is hidden, and an image of how the report will look when it is printed is displayed, along with the Print Preview toolbar. If you can’t see an entire page in the window, you can maximize the window, or click the Zoom button to toggle the page magnification.
On the Navigation bar, click the Next Page button repeatedly to view each of the 10 pages of this report.
On the Print Preview toolbar, click the Close button.
Tip
A new feature with Access 2003 is automatic error checking. Error checking identifies common errors in forms and reports and gives you a chance to fix them. For example, Access informs you if a report is wider than the page it will be printed on. To enable error checking, on the Tools menu, click Options, click the Error Checking tab, click the "Enable error checking" checkbox, and under Form/Report Design Rules, click the options you want to enable, and then click OK.
Click the down arrow to the right of the View button, and click Layout Preview.
The Print Preview toolbar is displayed, and the report looks similar to the way it does in Print Preview. However, not all products are listed in each group. (If you can’t see the page clearly, zoom in.)
Click the Next Page button.
In Layout Preview, the report has only one or two pages.
Click the Close button to return to Design view.
On the File menu, click Print to display the Print dialog box.
You can click the Setup button to open the Page Setup dialog box, or you can click Properties to open a dialog box in which you can set properties specific to the printer designated in the Name box. You can also specify which pages to print and the number of copies of each.
Click Cancel to close the Print dialog box.
Close the report.
CLOSE the GardenCo database.