Can I scan a pre-existing paper form to use as a Access report?

[Bri]

I am converting my office from using pre-printed forms that are filled-out by
hand, to one that uses Access to populate most of the the form, the balance
still filled out by hand. Is there a way to scan these existing forms and
convert them an Access Report?

 

[Jeff Boyce]

An Access report is created by you telling Access what data to put where and
how to format it.

How would you envision a paper pre-printed form being converted into data
displayed in a printed Access Report? (I'm having trouble seeing a way to
do this...)

Be aware that, as a relational database, MS Access provides a place to store
data (tables), a way to retrieve sets of data (queries), and a way to format
the printed display of that retrieved data (reports). I don't see a clear
path between a scanned form and a printed Access Report.

Good luck!

Regards

Jeff Boyce
Microsoft Office/Access MVP

 

[Sylvain Lafontaine]

Well, you can try to use the scanned form as a background image but I'm
afraid that the result will probably be not good looking.

The best way is probably to build manually an Access report using the
pre-printed form as a source of inspiration. I did this a few years ago and
the final result was quite good; looking almost exactly as the originals.
However, it took me many days to achieve this result. All you need to do is
to be very precise about your measurements.

--
Sylvain Lafontaine, ing.
MVP - Windows Live Platform
Email: sylvain2009 sylvainlafontaine com (fill the blanks, no spam please)
Independent consultant and remote programming for Access and SQL-Server
(French)