How to calculate and track elapsed time. We receive lots of questions about tracking elapsed time, which confuses everyone at first. If you’re working within the same 24 hour time period, you can use the simple expression [endtime] – [starttime] to return the number of hours and minutes spent on
Access Archon #162 Getting around Vista Security We have all seen those ads where the Mac guy acts superior to the PC guy who is constantly bothered by the Vista Secret Service agent asking if he wants to cancel or continue every time he tries to do something on his
How to make the current row a different color for continuous forms or datasheet type subform (and for continuous forms-type main forms). Access Archon #173 Introduction When you have a form with a continuous forms or datasheet type subform, sometimes it is a good idea to highlight the current row
Suiting Access 2007’s Navigation Pane display to your liking. Q: Gordon Rennie writes: “Now with Access 2007 the database window has disappeared and been replaced with a stupid list at the side that only shows one item per line. Is there any way to get the database window back? or
How to open a form when making a selection from a listbox on another form. Q: Martin wrote to ask if I could help with code to open a form to a specific record when the user makes a selection from a listbox on another form. A: This is easy
How to save a report to PDF file in Access 2007. Access Archon #156 Introduction For many years now, Access users have wanted the option of saving a report to the PDF format. An Access report saved as a PDF file can be opened by anyone (unlike Access snapshots,
A reader offers some further information about the CreateMonthList function. José Dumoulin wrote in response to the CreateMonthList function in the sample database for Access Archon #146: For us, Europeans, it is necessary, in this line, to replace commas by semicolons: strMonthList = strMonthMinus3 & ” ” & strYearMinus3
How to display an ID field in a closed combo box but hide it in a drop-down list. Q: Rich writes that he needs to display an ID field in a closed combo box, but doesn’t want it to appear in the drop-down list. The field is the first one
A reader suggests another way to convert a numeric option value to text. In AW 7.12 I suggested using the Switch function to convert numeric values from a choice in an option group to text values. Tom Bushaw writes to suggest another possibility, the Choose function. The Choose function yields a
The Office Update page of the Microsoft Web site offers a useful toolkit for analyzing databases prior to converting them to Access 2003 format. It is called the Access 2003 Conversion Toolkit, listed under the Add-ins link under the Access 2003 heading on the page. Donn Edwards offers a utility
How to create a file name that includes the date. Q: Steve Mason is trying to export data from a query to an Excel worksheet, and save each exported file with today’s date in the file name, for example qrytest.01/01/2004.xls. How can this be done? A: Slashes in the date
How to successfully merge data from Access to Word. Q: Bruce Michael writes: “I have been attempting to do a merge in Word 2003 using an Access 2003 query. When I look in the query, the data is correct, but when I actually merge using the data, for one column
How to get group headings to repeat for groups that extend over several pages. Q: Saul writes that he is having problems with getting headers to repeat on each page in a report. A: To get group headings to repeat for groups that extend over several pages, set the Repeat
How to print larger Memo fields without truncation. Q: Tara Santmire wants to know how to print Memo fields with more than 255 characters on an Access report, without truncation. A: All you need to do is set the CanGrow property of the text box bound to the Memo field
Follow up on the recently reported NT error message. A follow-up on the weird NT error message reported in the WAW 2.06: “The control registers for COM2 overlaps with the COM2 control registers.” followed two lines later by “While validating that COM2 was really a serial port, the contents of
Q: Mark Jackson writes that he is having trouble getting code that picks up values from textboxes on a form to work – a Help topic said that the focus must be on the control in order to pick up the topic. A: Some of those Help topics are very
Microsoft may have announced support for the ODF document format, but it’s still a long way off. Microsoft has announced support for the ODF document format in Microsoft Office. But don’t get too excited about it, it’s a long time coming. click here for more …
Link to information about hiding the database title bar. Hiding the Database Title Bar Q: Bill Johnston wants to know if there is any way to hide the database title bar. A: I found something on the Web (I haven’t tried it). See Terry Kreft’s post on TheScripts Developer Network
How to filter a form from a listbox selection. Q: Martin later wrote with a related question: he is getting Runtime error ’13’: Type mismatch when running the following code (which is intended to filter the current form by the double-clicked item in the listbox): Private Sub lstSamtaler_DblClick(Cancel As Integer)
How to create a database with links to external documents. Q: I am looking for some information and examples for creating a database of documents….(Excel spreadsheets, PDF files, word documents, jpegs, and bimps). I would like to see an example of records with links to external docs, and perhaps an
How to retrieve some commonly used folder paths using contemporary syntax. Access Archon #148 Introduction Back in 1996 or 1997 I wrote a set of articles for Office Underground Office Newsletter (that was the one printed on bright yellow paper) on retrieving various paths, such as the Windows and Office
How to get accented characters in Access fields. Q: Ray Bona wants to know: “How can I get an accented character (e.g. e-acute, n with a tilde, or o with an umlaut, etc.) in text that I enter in an Access field?” A: One way is to create the accented
Readers offer their solutions for calculating total hours. Many readers have contributed better (or at least different) functions or expressions as alternatives to the rather awkward method I described in AW 7.04. Here they are for your consideration, with my comments. (Bill Patterson’s contribution was described in AW 7.10). For
