VB to generate Access Reports

yippie_ky_yay

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Hello forum,

I have created a database and several reports in Access as a planning phase. Now I would like to re-create everything in VB (it's for a course I'm in).

I figured out all the ODBC stuff, but now that I'm trying to re-create my reports I am noticing a HUGE difference. It doesn't seem to support many of the features that I had originally used in my Access reports (ie mult. columns or "CanShrink" to suppress blank lines).

Has anyone else found the same limitations? I know of Crystal Reports but have never even seen it - would it solve the issues described above?

Thanks,

-Sean
 
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Hitching a ride on this thread.

JonH.
 
Crystal is a powerful report writer but personally, I like Access better. It is more flexible with recordsources and supports VBA in its events. You can use Access reports from VB. There are articles in the knowledge base regarding this.
 
Thanks again Pat.

I was worried about running out of time for this project so I ended up doing just what you suggested - run the reports from VB (code that I found in either this forum or tek-tips.com - and it works great!). As a bonus, once you exit the preview view (either by "close" or hitting the design view button) access closes - which makes it at least a little more secure.

My only issue is that my VB program was working perfectly on it's own as a stand-alone .exe without access installed - but now I think it will need to be available.

I did start to make some good progress with Crystal - but didn't really have the time (plus I wasn't sure what I was going to do with it once I was finished - ie how I was going to integrate it into my VB stuff).

Thanks again - sorry for the rambling (just wanted to pass on the info for anyone interested!)

-Sean
 
I disagree with Pat on the Crystal Reports. My experience has shown Crystal Reports to work much better with VB then the Access Reports. I prefer Crystal's ability to accept a RecordSet over having a RecordSource (Which means more flexability with Disconnected Recordsets).

To answer your question on how you are going to integrate the reports with your VB App. I have found adding the Reports to a Custom made VB DLL has worked best for me.
 

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