Please help with JPGs in Access

[boe]

I modified existing databases years ago in Access for dvd asset and other
inventories. They worked great in 2000 and XP (maybe as far back as 98).
They all have JPGs in them for the items listed in each database.

Office 2003 (as far as the different ways I've configure it) doesn't seem to
handle OLE for the JPGs so when I insert JPGs, it won't display in the
reports or other items I've created in the database. I've installed just
the photo editor that came with Office XP to get around this with 2003.

I don't want to be stuck when it comes to Office 2007 or whatever name it
will go by. If anyone has a good way around this or would want to look at
my database I'd be open to some help. I tried out the beta of office a few
months ago and Access seems to be still missing the jpg handler although it
was just a beta.

Thanks!

 

[Guest]

Anyone?

 

[Larry Linson]

Anyone?

"boe" wrote:

When you embed or link images as OLE objects you "put yourself at the mercy"
of whatever software you (or, even worse, the user of your database) has
registered to handle that particular image file format. It only _happened_
that some previous versions of Office included image handling software and
installed it by default. Certainly not all editions and versions of Office
did. Except for those photo editing components, Office itself is not
advertised as having, nor does it have, the kind of capability that you seem
to assume.

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.

Larry Linson
Microsoft Access MVP

 

[boe]

Thanks - I'm not sure why Word, Excel, just about any other software package
lets you drop JPG files into it without issue and they didn't think of a
good way of doing this within Access.

 

[Stephen Lebans]

Word, Excel and Access use the Office Library Graphics filters to display
Jpeg images within a standard Image control. You on the other hand are using
OLE and Larry has already explained to you that the use of an external app
that functions as the OLE Server has nothing to do with Access per se.

--

HTH
Stephen Lebans
http://www.lebans.com
Access Code, Tips and Tricks
Please respond only to the newsgroups so everyone can benefit.

 

[boe]

Thanks - I followed the response. My response was not to diminish his
answer. It was to point out that it is a flaw in the current version of
Access in my opinion. SQL can efficiently encode JPGs. Why not give the
ability to Access.

Again, I'm not suggesting they continue business as it was - I'm suggesting
they improve it. Just as Exchange handles the database slightly
differently than it did in the past, the engine needs an overhaul in Access.

When Word was in its earlier form, it did not support JPGs well. Word
Perfect was significantly better for word wrap, positioning, etc. They
realized the flaw and fixed it - instead of saying that is the way Word
works, we'll just leave it that way.

 

[Larry Linson]

... It was to point out that it is a flaw in the
current version of Access in my opinion. SQL
can efficiently encode JPGs. Why not give the
ability to Access.

I don't understand what you mean by "SQL can efficiently encode JPGs." SQL
(Structured Query Language) is a language for retrieving and manipulating
material stored in databases, and cannot "encode" any graphics file format.
If, on the other hand, you are talking about Microsoft SQL Server (which is
a database engine), it can, just as the Jet database engine can, store and
retrieve images -- but neither "encodes" nor "displays" them.

Word is word processing software and Excel is a spreadsheet. Both of them
produce "documents." Access is the user interface and development tool that
provides "access" to a number of different databases, with its default
database engine being "Jet." Access can use the same Office Library
Graphics filters that Word and Excel use to display image files in an Image
Control (as Stephen pointed out in his response), including .JPG image
files, in the closest thing to "documents" that it has: Forms and Reports.
That is described and illustrated in the material to which I referred you
earlier.

IN ADDITION, Access provides OLE Object capability, which uses external
software (whatever is registered to handle the file type) to handle a number
of types of file, including Word and Excel documents. And, if you have a
COM-compliant OLE server registered for a particular image file type, OLE
Objects and Bound OLE Frames can handle that image type.

If you are saying that image handling in Access _could_ be enhanced, I'd
have to agree. (I am not certain I'd agree that it _should_ be enhanced, as
there is no software that "does everything," and Access isn't "image
processing software." But, fortunately or unfortunately, I don't have the
responsibility of deciding what areas of Microsoft products should be
enhanced.)

And, if you will go back to the online interface you used to post this,
there is an option to post a suggestion to Microsoft here in the newsgroup.
Microsoft personnel do not normally monitor _all_ the posts here, but the
suggestion option is a feature intended to present your suggestions for
product enhancement to Microsoft, so they do see those.

The more specific and detailed you are in your suggestion, the easier it
will be for the people who evaluate them to understand and decide what to do
about it. I don't know the details of the process Microsoft uses for this,
but in some companies I've been associated with in the past, there were
several levels of review and approval... they were prioritizing features for
multiple future generations of their products.

Thanks for bringing up and pursuing this interesting topic.

Larry Linson
Microsoft Access MVP

 

[boe]

Thanks - I appreciate the time you take for all of your responses. I do
think that Access could and should work with photos better. While I
understand that no one app can do everything, I would think databases
typically tend to fall into about 3 categories and inventory would be one of
them - that includes personel, equipment, catalogues etc. For that reason
I think that is should handle pictures. I understand your differentiation
in how apps handle jpgs - I still think access needs some way of handling
them - whether the function is built into the app or using some ubiquitous
handler built into Windows.

 

[Larry Linson]

"boe" wrote

Thanks - I appreciate the time you take for
all of your responses. I do think that Access
could and should work with photos better.
While I understand that no one app can do
everything, I would think databases typically
tend to fall into about 3 categories and
inventory would be one of them - that includes
personel, equipment, catalogues etc.

I don't know what, in your view, constitutes a "category," but I've worked
on tens, maybe hundreds, of Access DBs since 1993, and no two of those
database applications were alike.

For that reason
I think that is should handle pictures. I under-
stand your differentiation in how apps handle jpgs -
I still think access needs some way of handling
them - whether the function is built into the app
or using some ubiquitous handler built into Windows.

I've been involved with a few applications that handled pictures... mostly,
those used either the external File approach or the BLOB approach documented
in the article and sample to which I provided the link. They relied on the
Graphics Filter for formatting the print or view.

Larry Linson
Microsoft Access MVP