Printing Custom Outlook Forms and Reports

Reports without code

Method 1: Copy and paste to Excel

1. Arrange the columns in a table view to show the fields you're interested in, in the order you want.
2. Choose Edit | Select All, then Edit | Copy.
3. Switch to an Excel worksheet, then choose Edit | Paste.

Once you have the data in Excel, you can do subtotals, totals, etc. with it and print the worksheet. You can also use this method to export custom fields to Excel.

Method 2: Saved Search

1. Choose Tools | Advanced Find, set up your search, and run it. Note that you can search across multiple folders in your Exchange mailbox or a Personal Folders .pst file.
2. Arrange the columns in a table view to show the fields you're interested in, in the order you want, with the column widths you need to display the full data in each field.
3. Choose File | Print to print the results.
4. Choose File | Save Search to save the search as an .oss file.

If you can send the .oss file to other users, they can run the search, then print the results, too.

Many thanks to Scott Perley on the outlook-dev discussion list for this method!

Method 3: Mail merge to Word

This method works only with contacts, but it supports any custom fields visible in the folder. The secret is to start the merge from the Outlook contacts folder with the Tools | Mail Merge command and choose to merge all fields in the folder. From there, just construct your document as you normally would. The folder's custom fields will be visible in the fields list. See: To start a Word letter from a Microsoft Outlook contact

WYSIWYG form printing

XPrint

The add-in prints all customized pages. The ActiveX control prints only the page on which you place it. If you can't add the XPrint ActiveX control to the control toolbox, try running Regsvr32 to register it: 

regsvr32 "c:\program files\microsoft office\office\addins\xprint.ocx"

XPrint cannot print the Body (message body), To, Cc or Bcc fields, though the first article below offers a workaround. See:

• OL2000- General Information About the XPrint Control and Add-in
• OL2000- XPrint Add-in Doesn't Appear to Work on Windows 95
• OL2000 XPrint Control Is Not Available in the Control Toolbox
• XCLN Xprint Utility Print Dialog Box Is Displayed in Background When Using Windows 95 -- information on an updated version of PrintForm.dll

Custom Word Templates and Code

For best results, automate Word, pushing data into either a blank document or a document created from a template, filling in form fields or insert text at bookmarks. Using a template lets you divide up the work: Someone else can lay out and format the template. You will find examples for this method in my book and among the samples below.

TIP: If you use the Word form field method, don't use a form field for the body of a message or for any other large field or field containing carriage return/line feeds. Instead use a bookmark, with a syntax like this:

objDoc.Bookmarks("Other").Range.InsertAfter Item.Body

Use this Range.InsertAfter technique any time you need to insert data that contains carriage returns. Here's another example, inserting the list of attachments from a message (Item) into a Word document (objDoc) at a bookmark named Attachment_List:

strAtts = ""
For Each att in Item.Attachments
       strAtts = strAtts & att.DisplayName & vbCrLf
Next
objDoc.Bookmarks("Attachment_List").Range.InsertAfter strAtts

Printing an HTML Message or Post

An all-Outlook method is to create a new message or post and set its HTMLBody property to a fully tagged HTML string containing the information you want to print out. The sample at  Sending a mail message with today's appointments shows how to construct such a message from a bunch of appointments. Instead of using .Display to display the message, you could use .PrintOut to print it out. Section 22.1.4 in my book describes this method in detail.

Samples

Chapter 22 in my book --  Microsoft Outlook Programming: Jumpstart for Administrators, Developers, and Power Users -- is all about custom printing. You can download the samples using the Get Sue's Code link at the bottom of any page.

Others

• Easy Task Reports with Outlook and WordProcessingML -- Export  Outlook 2003 data as XML and then use Word's XML features and XSL to create a menu of different reports. Sample code available.
• Print custom fields for a specific contact using Word bookmarks
• Word Calendar templates -- Three custom Word templates to print data from Outlook calendar folders. Good examples of how to loop through all items in an Outlook folder, build Word tables, color-code by category, etc. 
• Time & Expense Billing: Part I and Part II -- Sample application by Helen Feddema that uses Word to print time reports derived from Outlook journal items. Get the updated sample code.
• Address Export Solution (mail merge via Word to print address lists)
• Print appointment with attendee status
• Printing Forms inside Outlook - builds a web page from a custom form's layout and prints that web page

Tools

More Information

• Outlook Does Not Print Forms as Expected
• To add a custom field to an Outlook view 
• One More Word -- Great introduction to Word's Selection, Range and Bookmark objects