Using a Word/Excel Form as a front end interface for MS Access Database

[commandolomo]

Hello all

Hope you may be able to help! Does anybody know if it is possible to have a form in MS Excel or Word, which one can use to search for and display data from an Access database? I cannot just use Excel, as Excel only supports 65k rows, and I have over £120K records - and sadly splitting the database info into two is not an option! I need to use word or excel as a front end interface due to license issues, and the amount of users that require access the info in the database means it will be very expensive to buy an Access license for all users.

Ideally, I would like to have a form in Excel or Word, where I could search through the primary key field in a database, and then pull through / display the record that relates to that primary key. Ultimately, the Word/Excel document would just act as front end interface, pulling

A tall order? I hope not! I have some knowledge of VB, and have tried to play around with the DDE functionality in MS applications, but have not been all that successful!

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Regards

 

[DES]

You could simply create the who thing in Access and distribute it freely to all other users IF you create it using the developers edition of Access.

Email me if you need a hand with that issue.

 

[commandolomo]

Thanks for the reply. To clear-up my understanding, by using the developers edition, I may be able to distribute the db to users who do not have Access on their PC?

 

[DES]

Exactly - that is what it is for. The Developers Edition of MS Access allows you to create a database to distribute to others even if they do not have Access on their system. Now there are some restrictions as to what they get because they get what is known as a run time version of Access which basically means they do not get the full version of Access and are limited quite a bit as to what they can do. But exceeding those limitations are part of what the developer adds to their to design to make it functional for the particular use.

DES

 

[Pat Hartman]

To give you a sense of how the application would work under the runtime version of Access, you can use the /runtime switch. Create a shortcut to execute your app and add the /runtime switch to the string. You will then see if you need to add custom menus and error handling.

Take a look at this article if you want to pursue the Word option:
Import Data Directly from Word Forms to Access Tables

 

[commandolomo]

Thanks very much for yuor time and help. I will look into the runtime option, as well as the Word Form article - many thanks Pat

Regards