Tutorials for exporting to Excel or creating graphs in Access?

[Catherine B]

Hi there,

I'm just getting into using VBA with Access to generate queries and filter reports. I also know a fair amount about Excel. What I'd really like to get into is generating reports automatically which include a whole range of (possibly dynamic?) graphs, linked to a variety of queries. Dynamic to allow for exploration into the data itself, though I also need to make a smart standardised report to send out to customers.

I'm trying to decide if it's better to learn to do EVERYTHING in Access, or to export it into Excel to generate the final reports automatically there. So I would appreciate opinions/thoughts on that

Also I was wondering if anyone knows any decent online tutorials on this area - I need some basic grounding in linking Access and Excel together, or using VBA to generate charts in Excel (or Access?)

many thanks,
Catherine

 

[richary]

I'm afraid I've not seen any access graph tutorials. The best resource I've found (aside from this forum of course ) is the Graph help file, which I think is on the installation CD. It follows the Excel graph model to some degree, so you may find that there are Excel/Graph/VBA tutorials that may get you started.

As regards whether to do everything in Access or use Excel, its probably horses for courses. Ideally and all else being equal, it makes sense to keep everything in Access via forms/reports and this is probably what I would suggest. If you need more flexibility in graphing, then I think the Excel/Graph would be better. ISTR Ecel Graphs have more options for formatting etc - although It's been a while since I compared the two so I could be wrong.

My suggestion is to nail down in your own mind exactly what you want the output to be now (if you haven't done already) and see if that can't be done in access. Post if you have specific questions, and I can try to answer, if you like.