We are having a problem printing a report for an application
submition program our department has produced.  We are using VB 3.0 Pro
with Crystal Reports 4.5.
  What has happened is that the application program generates
applications which are quite large.  Easily approaching several hundred
pages.  When the entire application was sent, the printer choked on the
report.  It was then decided to break the report down into seperate
sections.  Then each section would be cued seperatly.  This seems like
it should have solved the problem.  However, now we are experiencing
bigger, better problems.
  The main report is now being broken into appoximatly thirty seperate
sections.  Three main sections, each containing several subsections.  The
problem we are having is that the jobs aren't being cued in the proper
order.  When the report is printed the many different subsections come
out in random order.  The problem does not appear to be unique to our
system either, as several of the end users have complained about the
randomness of the output.  This is understandable, as some of the
applications can be quite large, manually sorting them is a nightmare.
Oh, almost forgot to mention the obvious problem of having other print
jobs slip in between application subsections.
  What we are looking for is a way to send this large application in order.
Ideally, without the possiblity of other jobs slipping in during printing.
We'd like to be able to give the end users the ability to print out the
application and send as is, without sorting.  Does anyone have any
experience printing large databases using Crystal Reports?  Can anyone
suggest other programs which might be able to the the job better then
Crystal Reports?  Also, if there isn't a way to send the whole database,
is there a way to make sure that the database subsections are sent in order?
Is the some way each subsection can report that it is finished so the next
job can be cued?

Many thanks,
Steve Brague

[snip]

I don't think you are having trouble with your reports.  It sounds to
me like you are overwhelming your printer, which is what you said you
thought was happening.  Try sending your printer job directly to the
printer.  sometimes the print spooler is the guy that chokes and makes
it look like the printer is {*filter*}.  I have had success with this
method a few times.
+----------------------------------------------------------+
| Tom Childers - ArlTex Software - Arlington, Texas        |

+----------------------------------------------------------+

writes:

Sounds like the problem will have to be fixed at the network/printer link
rather than at the Crystal Reports/VB end.  Make sure that the buffers set up
by your network server are adaquate in size to hold the full report.  We found
that slowing down the communications to the printer helped as a quick fix until
more memory was purchased to make a more permanent solution.  As a rule, huge
jobs need to stay huge.  Once they are cut up, you lose control over
continuity.

Good luck.