Access™ 2007 VBA Programmer's Reference

Chapter 16. Working with Office Applications

Designing complete, fully functioning database solutions in Microsoft Access is done quite often without the need for working with any another Microsoft Office application. After all, you can use Access forms to enter data, Access reports to view and print data, and the SendObject method to send Access information via e-mail. On the other hand, it is not only possible, but extremely useful to leverage the features of other Office applications to enhance an Access solution with very few lines of code. For example, you might want to use Outlook to generate a customized e-mail with information from an Access table. If the Access solution offers a method for users to export data to Excel, those users can leverage Excel features to customize data in their own way without unwanted interaction with your application. Exporting data to Microsoft Word gives users the capability to add their own text, perform mail merges, customize documentation, and much more in a practically universal file format. This chapter illustrates methods for employing other Office applications directly in your Access database solution.

You'll use code examples for working with the other Office programs, and take a look at some real-world situations that illustrate how interaction with other Office programs can enhance your application. Please download the sample database code files for this chapter to see the code included in this chapter.