Unofficial Access Stuff

Use your pdf converter to make your pdf files easy! You can now buy software that makes converting pdf to doc possible! Did you know you can even convert pdf to word?

Home Page

Bloglines

1906
CelebrateStadium
2006

OfficeZealot

Scobleizer

TechRepublic

AskWoody

SpyJournal

Host your Web site with PureHost!

Tuesday, September 20, 2011 – Permalink –

OLAP Cubes

More dimensions than Star trek

When a company accumulates a great deal of information, it becomes un-wieldy to work with just basic Excel or Access databases.

There is a database concept called on OLAP cube (On-Line Analytical Processing).

This multidimensional collection of data can be thought of as a 3-D pivot table viewed from flat land.

MSDN:
Just What Are Cubes Anyway?
(A Painless Introduction to OLAP Technology)

OLAPReort.com:
What is OLAP

Wikipedia:
OLAP

See all Topics access
Labels: General, Reference, Tutorials

<Doug Klippert@ 3:40 AM

Comments: Post a Comment

Saturday, September 17, 2011 – Permalink –

Set Field Defaults

Speed up table creation with default field settings

When you add fields to a table, Access assumes you want to use a 50/255-character Text field by default. However, you may typically use a smaller field size or you may personally use Number fields more often than Text ones.

You can avoid having to change the size and data types for new fields by setting defaults that are appropriate to your own design habits. To do so:

Choose Tools> Options from the menu bar and switch to the Tables/Queries sheet.

Select the data type you use most from the Default Field Type dropdown list.

Set the Text and Number sizes you usually want to use in the Default Field Sizes panel and

Click OK.

In Access 2007 go to Access Options>Object Designers:

See all Topics access
Labels: Customize, General, Tips, Tutorials

<Doug Klippert@ 3:28 AM

Comments: Post a Comment

Friday, September 16, 2011 – Permalink –

Legacy Files from 2007

Go back

Read this article closely. If you work in a situation where you need to work with legacy (pre-2007) files, it may be handy.

If you do most of your work in 2007, I wouldn't bother.

"When you use Windows Explorer or the desktop to create a new 2007 Microsoft Office file, a new Office file is created in an XML file format (.dox or .xlsx). For example, this behavior occurs when you right-click the desktop, you point to New, and then you click Microsoft Office Word Document. By default, files that you create in the 2007 Office system are in XML file formats.

This article is about how to create legacy Office files, such as .doc files, .xls files, .ppt files, or .mdb files in the 2007 Office system. You can create legacy Office files without opening any Office applications. To do this, you must modify some settings. The modified settings will apply to all the users who log on to the computer."

See all Topics access
Labels: Reference

<Doug Klippert@ 3:47 AM

Comments: Post a Comment

Tuesday, September 13, 2011 – Permalink –

VBA, Named Arguments

An easier read

Use named arguments for cleaner VBA code.

Most likely, you use positional arguments when working with VBA functions. For instance, to create a message box, you probably use a statement that adheres to the following syntax:

MsgBox(prompt[, buttons] [, title] [, helpfile, context])

When you work the MsgBox function this way, the order of the arguments can't be changed.

Therefore, if you want to skip an optional argument that's between two arguments you're defining, you need to include a blank argument, such as:

MsgBox "Hello World!", , "My Message Box"

Named arguments allow you to create more descriptive code and define arguments in any order you wish. To use named arguments, simply type the argument name, followed by :=, and then the argument value.

For instance, the previous statement can be rewritten as:

MsgBox Title:="My Message Box", _ Prompt:="Hello World!"

(To find out a function's named arguments, select the function in your code and press [F1].)

See all Topics

access
Labels: VBA

<Doug Klippert@ 3:00 AM

Comments: Post a Comment

Saturday, September 03, 2011 – Permalink –

Display the current record number

Without navigation

You may want to remove the navigation buttons from an Access form but still display the current record number. Not the ID or serial number, but the record number that would appear in the navigation box.

To provide this feature, you can use VBA to place the form's CurrentRecord value in an unbound text box, and then update the value during the Current event.

To utilize this property, add an unbound text box to your form in Design view. Then, on the Event tab of the form's Property list, click the ellipsis or Build button. Choose Code Builder.

Add the following code in the Visual Basic Editor:

Private Sub Form_Current() MyTextBox = Me.CurrentRecord End Sub

(where MyTextBox is the name of the control that displays the record number.)

Now, when you navigate from record to record, the MyTextBox control will update automatically to reflect the current number.

See all Topics access
Labels: Customize, General, Tips

<Doug Klippert@ 3:47 AM

Comments: Post a Comment