Data Storage/Formatting

[Guest]

Hello,

I would like to use Access to store data which would ultimately be used in
various PP presentations. My thoughts are to use VBA to transfer the data
from Access to PP, but I would like to have my users input and store the data
into a database (Access). My current problem is formatting. How can I allow
my users to input to a Form and format the text to their liking and then save
their data and formatting. Several of the inputs will be in bulleted format
similar to:

First Bullet line (Bold)
- Sub-bullet 1
- Sub-bullet 2
Second Bullet Line (Bold)
- Sub-bullet 1a
- Sub-bullet 2a

I suppose one option would be to format the data using VBA, however how
could I distinguish which lines should be formatted which way when
transferring the data if the user is utilizing a single textbox in the Form.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks,

 

[John Nurick]

It's worth thinking very carefully about what sort of formatting
information you want to store. Your choice of example suggests that
you're thinking of storing text with a paragraph-level markup, like
paragraph styles in Word or the <UL>...</UL> structure in HTML. The
detailed specification (font size, bullet character, etc. etc.) would
be applied in PowerPoint (makeing it easy to update the design of the
slides without having to change your data).

If that's the case, you can store the text of each item in one field
and the stylename in another and have the VBA usse this information
when laying out the slide.

If you also want to be able to change formatting within each block of
text you store it's probably simplest to implement some sort of
tagging scheme. For future-proofing it would make most sense to think
in terms of XML or at least HTML: Office 2007 has new XML-based file
formats which make it possible to "inject" data into files directly
rather than having to laboriously automate the target application.

 

[Guest]

Is there somewhere I can reference storing style names and text in this form.

I am unclear how I will be able to identify when the text needs to be placed

 

[John Nurick]

As I said, if you want to be able to vary the formatting within a
block of text you'll need to include formatting tags in the text.
Storing stylenames in a separate column is IMHO only a practical
solution if formatting is only applied at the paragraph or text block
level.

To do what you seem to want I'd probably use a rich text control (like
an ordinary textbox but with formatting capability), preferably one
that uses XML or HTML. Access 2007 includes a rich text control; for
earlier versions you have to use a third party product such as Total
Access Memo from www.fmsinc.com or the free control from
www.lebans.com.