VB printing merge Word document automatically - working intermittently

[courtview]

Our application has the ability to use Word mail merge to generate
court documents. Based on different scenarios in the application,
certain options can be set to control the function of the form
automatically. One of these options can instruct the form (VB script in
the form) to print to the default printer automatically. This typically
works fine. However, some clients (sometimes) need to run the process a
second time in order for it to print. Is it possible that there is a
timing issue?

Again, this works most of the time. However, for some sites - for
certain users it does NOT work some of the time. The issue is seen for
multiple OSs and versions of Word so I've run into a dead end trying to
isolate it to a setup/configuration issue.

TIA

 

[Doug Robbins - Word MVP]

Well we would have to see the code to have any chance of helping you.
--
Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP

 

[Perry]

I wouldn't worry much about MS Word side of the problem,
if you're using a straightforward PrintOut command in Word VBA
(even with Background printing set to True) there should be no problem at
all.

It's definitely (most likely) a System issue to be handled by IT ops.

Example: Citrix clients can cause problems when certain users have
sent print commands of PDF documents to a printer, where at the same time
other users want to print simple Word documents on the same printer.
Latancy setting, Loadbalancing issues can typically be the cause of these
problems. IT ops to deal with this.

Krgrds,
Perry

 

[Roy]

The process is fairly straigh forward. Our application writes two temp
files: header and data. Word open automatically and our merge macro
uses these files to merge the document(s). The user then simply prints
the merged word documents.

On [rare] occassion, the documents will not print. I'm telling the
client IT staff that this has nothing to do with our application. The
only thing I can think of is loss of connectivity to the printer. But
they don't receive an error message. Just looking for a little more
info to help communicate this to IT.

Thanks so much for the responses thus far.

 

[Doug Robbins - Word MVP]

The only thing that I can suggest is that if you are using the .PrintOut
command, that you set the Background attribute to false.

--
Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP