Insert Picture creates a huge database

[Guest]

I have a field in my table "Picture" that is an OLE Object.
I then go to my form and "Insert", "Object" a picture that is 32 KB, close
it all out and look at the Database properties it goes from 108KB to 2.83 MB,
even when I check the link button it takes the database up to 1.92 MB. Then
when I delete the picture the database stays at the higher MB instead of
going back to 108 KB.

Sheading some light on this would be great thanks!

Stacey

 

[Douglas J. Steele]

Yes, Access is very inefficient at storing images.

The sample imaging databases at http://accdevel.tripod.com illustrate three
approaches to handling images in Access, and the download includes an
article discussing considerations in choosing an approach. Two of the
approaches do not use OLE Objects and, thus, avoid the database bloat, and
some other problems, associated with images in OLE Objects.

If you are printing the images in reports, to avoid memory leakage, you
should also see MVP Stephen Lebans' http://www.lebans.com/printfailures.htm.
PrintFailure.zip is an Access97 MDB containing a report that fails during
the Access formatting process prior to being spooled to the Printer Driver.
This MDB also contains code showing how to convert the contents of the Image
control to a Bitmap file prior to printing. This helps alleviate the "Out of
Memory" error that can popup when printing image intensive reports.

If you've already starting storing images in your database, and you'd like
to export them all, see:
http://www.lebans.com/oletodisk.htm

BTW, Access never frees up space when a deletion is made. It's necessary to
Compact the database (under Tools | Database Utilities) in order to recover
the space.

 

[Tee See]

I ran into the same problem but solved it by creating thumbnails and
inserting them into the database