Access® 2010 Bible

Chapter 22. Integrating Access with Other Applications

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Using Automation to integrate with other applications

• Using Microsoft Word to create an Automation example

• Using Microsoft Outlook to collect data

As companies standardize their computer practices and software selections, it's becoming more and more important to develop total solutions — in other words, solutions that integrate the many procedures of an organization. Usually, various business functions and processes are accomplished by using different software packages, such as Microsoft Word for document preparation, Microsoft Exchange Server and Microsoft Outlook for mailing and faxing, Microsoft PowerPoint for presentations, and Microsoft Excel for financial functions. If the organization for which you're developing has standardized on the Microsoft Office suite, you can leverage your knowledge of Visual Basic for Applications to enhance all these products.

Automation (formerly called OLE Automation) is a means by which an application can expose objects, each with its own methods and properties, that other applications can create instances of and control through code. Not all commercial applications support Automation, but more and more applications are adopting Automation to replace the outdated Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE) interface. Consult with a specific application's vendor to find out whether it supports or plans to support Automation in the program.

Note

In this chapter the word Automation is capitalized to ...