Access™ 2007 VBA Programmer's Reference

16.1. Sharing Information Is a Two-Way Street

When sharing information between multiple Microsoft Office programs, you can write code two ways:

• Write the code within Access to "push" the data into the other Office programs.

• Write code within those other programs to "pull" data from Access into them.

Because this book is about Access 2007 VBA, most of the discussion covers the push scenario, but don't worry—there are examples of the pulling data into other applications as well. Many of the examples in this chapter are based on a hypothetical Inventory Control application for pallets of material from a manufacturing plant, included in the sample code for this chapter.

The sample Inventory Control application is an example of a database solution that allows users to store asset information for their business. A series of forms, reports, tables, and queries enable users to work with the data. In addition, there are a number of more advanced tasks users might want to tap into, which require other components in the Microsoft Office System. Leveraging the other Office 2007 programs, such as Outlook, Word, and Excel, is a powerful way to enhance your Access database application.