adding an image to an access databse

[Alana]

how do you add an image, a photo, to a database that i've set up?

 

[Daniel Pineault]

What version of access are you using?
--
Hope this helps,

Daniel Pineault
http://www.cardaconsultants.com/
For Access Tips and Examples: http://www.devhut.net
Please rate this post using the vote buttons if it was helpful.

 

[John W. Vinson]

how do you add an image, a photo, to a database that i've set up?

Where do you want to add it? In a table? as an image on a form or report? or
what?

And what version of Access? Note that all versions before 2007 handled images
VERY inefficiently; they'd rapidly bloat the database to enormous size, and
were really impractical. 2007 is much better but images are still very much
larger than text or numbers, and you're limited to 2GByte in a database so you
do need to be careful (not *too* many images, and not *too* large).

 

[Tom van Stiphout]

On Mon, 8 Feb 2010 17:08:01 -0800, Alana

Generally speaking it is better to store the path to a picture, and
leave the picture itself in the file system.
You can also store the relative path, relative to some root folder.
That makes it simpler to move your image catalog around.

If you must store it in the db, check out the Northwind sample
application, Employee form.

-Tom.
Microsoft Access MVP

 

[Larry Linson]

how do you add an image, a photo, to a database that i've set up?

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.

And, Stephen has an ActiveX control available that works in cases where the
graphics filters are not available -- and works better, I've heard, than the
OLE Object and OLE Controls.

Please note that there are other approaches, e.g.,
Application.FollowHyperlink, but those, like OLE and Bound OLE Frames still
leave you "at the mercy of the imaging software registered for the
filetype".

Finally, Access 2007 has enhancements that, reputedly, eliminate the
database bloat long associated with OLE Objects and Bound OLE Frames. But,
it still leaves you relying on the software registered for the image type,
which may not be as "cooperative" as we'd like in creating our display. It
also has the capability of having a variable number of Attachments to a
Record, which may be helpful. But, as I have not done much with it yet, I
certainly wouldn't suggest you rush out and replace an earlier version of
Access.

Larry Linson
Microsoft Office Access MVP