Report printed output alignment

[Nick]

We have a full blown medical collections db written in Access. It serves a
niche market - that we work - and was never intended to be sold
commercially. Suddenly, we are getting inquiries from prospective
purchasers.

The biggest hurdle seems to be printing of HCFA claim forms. The official
HCFA 1500 form is preprinted and an approved 'red' copy must be printed on
and submitted.

http://images.mirrosoft.net/HCFA.gif (zoom in)

All other medical billing applications (all non-Access) have proprietary and
complex form alignment utilities, though these can be difficult to use. In
Access, endusers find alignment is very, very difficult and they dislike
working in design view. Section spacing is very tricky.

http://images.mirrosoft.net/rptHCFA.jpg

Are there any 3rd party add-ons or embedable report generation apps that
might help with this? So many printers, all with different characteristics.
Any other suggestions. thanks.

Nick

 

[Larry Linson]

Are there any 3rd party add-ons or embedable report generation apps that
might help with this? So many printers, all with different characteristics.
Any other suggestions. thanks.

There are third-party reporting application, e. g., Crystal Reports. But I
don't know of any that people who know Access reporting prefer to Access
itself.

I've seen some impressive work done with Crystal (not in an Access database,
but on a website). Because of a recent question here, I asked the author of
that impressive Crystal work about Crystal's subreports. His response was,
"Yes, it has something like Subreports, but they are a real pain." To the
best of my knowledge, he always preferred to use Access reports when he
could.

You might take a look at Access 2007 -- I'm told it has some very nice
enhancements to Reporting.

Larry Linson
Microsoft Access MVP

 

[Nick]

Thanks for your help Larry. How does one handle an Access app that is
packaged as an .mde? In an .mde, is printer alignment even possible for the
enduser (for filling out preprinted blank form)?

I am ok with using Access reports 03 but cannot see any way to simplify
alignment. If I buy 2007, my developer will need it as well. If the
endusers install as an .mdb, they will all require 2007.

Nick

 

[Marshall Barton]

We have a full blown medical collections db written in Access. It serves a
niche market - that we work - and was never intended to be sold
commercially. Suddenly, we are getting inquiries from prospective
purchasers.

The biggest hurdle seems to be printing of HCFA claim forms. The official
HCFA 1500 form is preprinted and an approved 'red' copy must be printed on
and submitted.

http://images.mirrosoft.net/HCFA.gif (zoom in)

All other medical billing applications (all non-Access) have proprietary and
complex form alignment utilities, though these can be difficult to use. In
Access, endusers find alignment is very, very difficult and they dislike
working in design view. Section spacing is very tricky.

http://images.mirrosoft.net/rptHCFA.jpg

Are there any 3rd party add-ons or embedable report generation apps that
might help with this? So many printers, all with different characteristics.
Any other suggestions. thanks.

Not that I know of.

I have always found that it works far better to duplicate
the preprinted thing in the Access report. This way
everything lines up and the only variation is the minor
adjustments Access has to make to accomodate specific
printers.

 

[Nick]

Thanks Marsh. It really would be nice to duplicate the form but we cannot
do that. They are read by OCR.

Nick