Printing MS Access report on Epson DMP

Factual Questions
1

I have a lengthy report in Access 2002 that I would like to print out using an Epson LQ-2550 dot matrix printer.

Previously this report was made in DBase, a DOS-based application. It printed quickly on fanfold paper, using the default font selections built-in to the Epson printer.

But–Windows apparently overrides whatever activates the default fonts in the printer, using instead the fonts you install inside the application (instead of sending ASCII character codes, I’d guess). The resultant printing is much, much slower.

The font chooser in Access (in Reports Design View) doesn’t seem to give one the option of sending in ASCII–if that’s what I need to be doing.

I can’t just save the report as a textfile and print from that, as I’d lose other necessary aspects of formatting. The ONLY thing I want to change is to be able to use those built-in fonts.

The Epson “help” guy has no solution.

Techno-clever Dopers?

2

You could try installing the Windows 'Generic text only printer driver and sending the access report to that (although I have to admit, I’ve tried this sort of thing before and it is an absolute nightmare to get a WYSIWYG access report to print out properly on a lineprinter.

I’m pretty sure it is possible to send bytes directly to LPT ports from Access, so youy could drive the printer yourself, if you’re feeling especially brave, but again, this is going to be a bit of a mare.

3

Gaaa! Whatsa matter with those MicroSoft people! Who do they think they are, a monopoly?!?

Anyone else?