Viewer/Reader for MS Access (Wintel platform)

[Ewa Wdzieczak-Smering]

Does anyone know of an application that would allow me to
view the mdb files? Or maybe there is something offered by
a third party that would do the trick? I am not interested
in the app offered by MS... according to its website, "The
Snapshot Viewer enables you to view a report snapshot
without having the standard or run-time versions of
Microsoft Access 97 through Access 2003." and I need a bit
more than that...

 

[Wayne Morgan]

The Snapshot Viewer would requires that the report be output as a snapshot
file first. As you say, that's probably not what you're after. There are
many programs that can access Jet database files, Access is just one of
those. Excel, Word, Visual Basic, and others can access Jet files. What are
you needing to do?

 

[Albert D. Kallal]

Does anyone know of an application that would allow me to
view the mdb files?

Why not just export the data so that excel can view it?

Or, even better..use the HTML export..and then any web browser can open the
data.

You could also send reports to pdf if you wanted.

It is not clear if you just need users to view data in a table format, or if
you are taking about distribution an application with forms etc that was
developed by your in house team of software developers?

and I need a bit
more than that...

Hum...that is problem. You are now thus facing the concept of distributing
an application. That likely means setting up a install of the ms-access
runtime files. Those runtime files do allow your application to install and
setup on a pc that does NOT have ms-access. However, it is still "ms-access"
under the covers that gets installed...and it is rather a large install.
(anyway from 50 to 150 megs + your data file). So, while this installed can
be distributed royalty free...it is not some small file format that you can
zip up and send out to users with ease. It is full blown windows application
install that will have to be done on the target computer.

However, you can package and deploy your application this way. And, if you
are talking large numbers of distributing then I would suggest in addition
to the developers edition of office (you need to purchase the developer
editing of office to get the runtime system), you look also looking into
using sagekey scripts.

www.sagekey.com