Save Reports and Other Printable Objects As PDF Files From Access

Following are a list of the things that you should know about if you are interested in saving Access reports and other printable objects in Portable Document Format (PDF) format.  All of this material also applies to the conversion of any printable object (Word, Excel) to PDF format.

Before you start, you will need to purchase or find software that will act as a PDF Printer Driver. The examples on this page come come from Nitro PDF Professional Version 5.4.

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Its Handled Thru A Printer Driver

The saving of reports is handled through a special printer driver that converts printed output into PDF format.  This is managed through the Nitro PDF Printer Driver software.  Because it is a printer driver, any software that can print can output to a PDF file.  The following images can be expanded to show the full view if they have a blue line around. 

Figure 1 - Save to PDF happens through a printer driver.  

 

Figure 2 - Save to PDF using the NitroPDF printer driver

When you say OK to print, you will then be prompted for the name of the PDF file that you want to save.  The default name will be the name of the Access report. 

Figure 3 - Choose the name of your PDF file

Working With The PDF File

There are many changes that you can now make to the report using the modern Nitro PDF Professional interface. The following interface screen shots shows you most of the actions you can undertake on your PDF document.

Figure 4 - The Home ribbon

 

Figure 5 - Part of the editing Ribbon  Read on web site

Figure 6 - The full editing ribbon

Figure 7 - A PDF that has had both a watermark and a comment added to it

 

Figure 8 - The PDF Forms Ribbon

 

Figure 9 - The security and signature ribbon

 

Figure 10 - The Viewing Ribbon, something that would come in handy for large documents

 

Figure 11 - The Help Ribbon is a work of Art

Figure 12 - The Save Menu will be very familiar with Office 2007 users

Summing Up

Nitro Pro is a really fun program to use and makes management of PDF files a breeze. In my view it is the best Ribbon interface that I have used. One of the reasons for this is that Nitro have correctly identified that a Ribbon menu is most suited to the tasks of working on a PDF document.

Now you may want to read about other (some free) PDF generators and printer drivers that our readers have recommended. Links for resources on cheap PDF File Generators

Note:  Access 2007 and the Rest of Office has a free download to produce PDF files. This integrates nicely with NitroPDF if you make Nitro the default PDF reader on your computer.
 

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