How do you attach a .pdf file to a record in Access?

S

Scanner

I must link a Access record/form to a pdf file to keep all the records in one
place.
How is this done? Can you import pdfs into an Access database? I
volunteer at a non profit charity and we must keep a lot of records! Thank
you for your help. Nancy
 
A

Arvin Meyer [MVP]

Storing documents or pictures within a database causes a huge amount of
bloat and your database will fill up quickly. No matter which database you
use, there is extra overhead in the storage, and all the decent free
databases allow only a few (perhaps up to 5 or 6 GBs to be stored) Access
allows 2 GB.

By storing in the file system and using a table to store the path within a
record, it becomes very easy to link any document to a record. My sample
database does this for Excel, Word, and text documents and could easily be
adapted to add PDFs.

http://www.datastrat.com/Download/DocMgr_2K.zip

The code to filter is:

Case "DOC", "TXT", "XLS"

and needs to be:

Case "DOC", "TXT", "XLS", "PDF"
 
G

George Hester

Fire up Access and make a new Form. Don't save it yet. Go to Insert |
Object... When the next window comes up if you see at the top of the list
Adobe Acrobat Document then you can. If not you can't. You may still be able
to by choosing the option button Create from File on the left worth a try I
guess. But you will soon find that it isn't worth it and Arvin's suggestion
will be much easier. What you can do is put the database and the pdfs all in
the same folder and then you can make a link like Name.pdf in one of the
fields; no path necessary. Then when or if you want to distribute it to
others you can zip the folder where your stuff is and give that. It will
always work. HTH.
 
S

Sandro Arena

I tryed to use Hyperlink with a pdf file as you suggested but every times I
click on the links MS Access open 2 differents security allert messages.
Iwas't able to remove these allerts and it's impossible to work if everytimes
access shows these.
Have you an other suggest to attacking pdf file to access record?
 
G

George Hester

Well it really depends on the version of Access you are using. You can turn
off most of those security alerts in Tools | Macros | Security. You choose
the least secure option. As long as you know the file types of executable
files you are safe. If you don't then just change it back to what you had if
you don't think you can open files without Security.
 

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