OL2007 Advanced Find Table Style Print

[usmcretd]

I use categories on all my e-mail and frequently want to print a list in table style of all e-mail in a particular category. I use Advanced Find in OL2007 (I hate Instant Search) and get the list of messages I want. When I select Page Setup, Table Style and then Print Preview, I just get a blank page with only column headings. I've checked all the settings I can find and the table style works when printing a list of messages in a single folder. Does anyone know if this is a bug or if I am doing something wrong?

Bill

[WendellB]

In order to get the print preview of Advanced Find to work, you have to select one or more messages in the results pane. But it appears to be using the memo styple when you do that, so you get a page (or more) for each message. I didn't try the table style however. Have you recently transitioned from 2003 to 2007?

[usmcretd]

Thanks for the quick reply.

I did try selecting all the messages before doing the print preview - it didn't help.
I transitioned to 2007 at home a couple years ago and at work last week. Since I do most of my work at work, I am trying to duplicate what I did under 2003 and I use categories heavily. I really need to figure out how to select all the messages in a given category and print a list of them.

I can use Instant Search to select all the messages in a given category (at least on my home computer - the query options are grayed out on my work computer, but that is a different problem). However, printing in table style from the results of instant search does not work either. In that case I get nothing when I click on Print Preview or when I try to print. It appears to be ignoring my request.

Bill

In order to get the print preview of Advanced Find to work, you have to select one or more messages in the results pane. But it appears to be using the memo styple when you do that, so you get a page (or more) for each message. I didn't try the table style however. Have you recently transitioned from 2003 to 2007?

[WendellB]

Interesting - that does look to be a bug when using the Table Style for Advanced Find - but it does work using Memo Style. However my system does work correctly with Table Style using Instant Search - you might want to try it in Landscape mode.

[usmcretd]

Interesting - that does look to be a bug when using the Table Style for Advanced Find - but it does work using Memo Style. However my system does work correctly with Table Style using Instant Search - you might want to try it in Landscape mode.

Interesting. I have tried portrait & landscape and every other setting and I still cannot get the print preview or print to work when trying to print table style from Instant Search results. It will print table style for the messages in a folder if no search is involved. I checked the Event logs and every time I try the print I get the following event posted to the Application log:
- System
- Provider
[ Name] Outlook
- EventID 27
[ Qualifiers] 16384
Level 4
Task 0
Keywords 0x80000000000000
- TimeCreated
[ SystemTime] 2010-04-19T13:37:48.000000000Z
EventRecordID 67649
Channel Application
Computer Sony-Laptop
Security
- EventData
The operation failed.

I have two different computers running Outlook 2007 - one with Win7 and the other with XP. One is using an Exchange server and the other is using IMAP and POP e-mail. They both have the same problem, but I can't check the event log on the XP machine because I don't have admin rights.

I have done a Google search on the problem and a Bing search on the MS Knowledge Base. Nothing related on MS KB. I found a similar problem listed by one person on a few forums, but none of his posts have a response. Either this problem is limited to a few installations or people are not using that "feature."

I'm thinking I might start another thread on this since it is apparently not limited to Advanced Find, but any search results in Office 2007.

I don't suppose there is anyway to report this to MS and see if it is a known problem without paying for tech support, is there?

[Richelle]

You can create a new search folder based on your desired category, then print your table style from that. To create the category search, click on the Categories button on the toolbar or choose Actions > Categorize from the menu, then select Create Category Search Folder. Your new search folder will be created in the Search Folders folder. Choose the folder, highlight the rows (if you want to narrow the selection) and choose your Print options.

[usmcretd]

You can create a new search folder based on your desired category, then print your table style from that. To create the category search, click on the Categories button on the toolbar or choose Actions > Categorize from the menu, then select Create Category Search Folder. Your new search folder will be created in the Search Folders folder. Choose the folder, highlight the rows (if you want to narrow the selection) and choose your Print options.

Wow! This is great. Good solution. I did run into one problem, but there is another (even easier) way to do this.
Sometimes (not sure why) the categorize button and choice on the Actions menu are grayed out. However, by right clicking on the Search folder that is at the bottom of the list of folders for a particular mailbox/PST file, I can create a new search folder and specify which categories I want. I can then print in table style from the new search folder. The nice thing about this approach is that I can save the search folders and I don't have to re-do the search when I want the printout.

A friend of mine didn't seem to have the same problem printing in table style from search results that I do. He was also using Outlook 2007 with Win 7, so my problem may be more limited than I thought. I ran the Office diagnostics and it didn't find any problems and I have all the patchs to date, so I am not sure what is wrong. I may try reinstalling Office 2007 if I ever get the time.

[psalm103jf]

I am researchnig the same problem -- user wants to be able to print using Table Style from Advanced Find; however, the workaround (Using Search Folders) does not work in my case, because the user is trying to search Contacts or Calendar and I can't seem to create Search folders for Contacts or Calendar.

[JohnBF]

I can't seem to create Search folders for Contacts or Calendar.

Unfortunately, Outlook 2003 & 2007 supports Search Folders only on Mail Item Folders: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/817890
Not completely sure about 2010, I think the same limitation applies.

[Richelle]

For Contacts and Calendar, you can create a new view that filters for the records you want (essentially doing an advanced search). Apply the view and then print the list. I've done this for several end users for their tasks, creating a view that showed tasks that were over due, due this week and due next week. Each subset has it's own color so they can print the list of tasks in a color coded format. I can provide detailed steps if anyone is interested.

[BtrWrld]

I am having the same problem and find it hard to believe that MS has not addressed this issue. I go into Outlook and generate an email listing using Advanced Find for all emails after a specific date. I want to be able to print this listing in the Table Style but when I preview it, I just get a blank page with headers only. If a send it to PDF, it is the same. I believe I have seen other reporting the same problem as far back as 2007. Just to make sure I am doing everything properly, I tried the similar task on another desktop that I have using XP/2003 and was able to generate the Table Style report without any problems.

Please, somebody at MS, wakeup and fix this problem.