Looking for a enhanced word processing report

[FuzMic]

Hi members

As I know it, msAccess report, text, unlike word processing, designer have limited control of its appearance.

I am making some reports where text forms a big part of it with some fields from the database. How can i control the text part? In paragraph format i would like to do eg text justified. As for text i would like to enhance eg bold, superscript, italics on certain part of the whole text.

How can i achieve all these?. I was wondering if msaccess report can handling html tags.

I am still using msaccess 03 & 07. I think underneath even, office 2016, the report design has not undergo any major changes.

Please enlighten me. Thank you.

 

[isladogs]

If it is an unbound textbox or bound to a memo field, you can use rich text which allow for text formatting of individual words or sections of text. Rich text is a subset of HTML so will handle many HTML tags but not all.

ACCDB files from v2007 onwards will give you more options than the older MDB files

 

[FuzMic]

Ridders

Thank you, got it.

You mean that if the report field is bounded to a normal text field, latter must be converted to a memo field; right?

When i view a memo field, only from Access 07 we can right click to go into Design View to do rich text formatting. I don't think we can do this from Access 03 at all, right?

I am going to try a few things, please advise if you know the answer

Do i have to have a .accdb to format a memo field?
Can I do the text formatting of a .mdb memo field from Access07?
Once done in Access07, can the formatting remain when i open the file in Access02-03?

 

[isladogs]

Yes it has to be a memo field AKA long text.

I'm fairly sure it wasn't available in A2003 though Stephen Lebans had some clever tools for using rich text in earlier versions. See his website if it matters to you. I've never used them however

 

[FuzMic]

Much appreciate your pointer

 

[isladogs]

Of course the other thing you could consider is using mail merge to export the info you want to a Word document.

 

[FuzMic]

Thank you mate for your advice again. Following is my legacy findings.

• We can use .mdb (not necessary accdb) with memo field to create rich text forms & report in A07.
• However these RTF forms & reports when view in msccess below 2007, tags will not resolved.
• Such .mdb if complied in A02-03 will will run in A07 and all HTML tags will resolve.

All these means only from 2007, msAccess start to interpret HTML tags placed in the database be it .mdb or .accdb.

Do you think Lebans have a simple fix in his huge contribution that allow A03-03 to resolve HTML tags.

 

[isladogs]

Sorry I don't know.

 

[CJ_London]

mdb's (2003 and earlier) used RTF formatting. RTF is a legacy standard that predates HTML and I'm not aware of any current system (access or otherwise) that still uses it as a standard, however it is still supported at the moment for output purposes.

RTF coding uses character code combinations to identify bold/italic etc. HTML, as I'm sure you know, uses tags and has a much richer range of options, tho' still limited compared with say Word.

If you convert/upgrade your .mdb to .accdb, access should automatically convert the RTF coding to HTML, tho' I've never had to do it so cannot confirm.

Access, like many apps is not backwards compatible. Anything written in a later version cannot be used by an earlier version.

Do you think Lebans have a simple fix in his huge contribution that allow A03-03 to resolve HTML tags.

you have a link to his site, go take a look. My guess is it will need to scan the memo field to substitute html tags with rtf characters and remove all tags that do not have a rtf equivalent - again access has a limited range of codes compared with MS Word of the day.

Found this link which might assist you with understanding the task you are setting yourself.

https://www.codeproject.com/Articles/7087/XHTML2RTF-An-HTML-to-RTF-conversion-tool-based-on


But I have to question why anyone is still using 2003 in a live environment these days

 

[FuzMic]

London something to dig in a few days time. Thank you.

I love old things being much smaller & faster yet can achieve my humble needs. Cheerio!

 

[isladogs]

London something to dig in a few days time. Thank you.

I love old things being much smaller & faster yet can achieve my humble needs. Cheerio!

I'm resisting (just!) the temptation to make a crude response to your last sentence

 

[FuzMic]

Come enlighten me.

 

[isladogs]

LOL.
Your response was on the right lines