Access database help

Westport_belle

Hi all,

I've just started work at a new employer and been thrown in at the deep end. They are using an old Access database to keep customer records and to produce invoices.
The invoices are generated upon running a query, but the formatting on the invoices is all over the place.
Ideally, I'd like to access the source template for the invoice and play around with the formatting and some of the text but I have no idea where to find it, and unfortunately neither does anybody else here. The person who set up the database is long gone and with him, all knowledge of the actual database set up has also disappeared.

Any help gratefully appreciated!

yop

Hi
Are they word document invoices? There is probably a word template that they have created and have bookmarks for the values within that document.
Have you looked at the design of the query to see if there is a property there which specifies what document it is using?

Westport_belle

Thanks for the reply Yop....they possibly are created from word templates but nobody seems to know where the word templates themselves are saved.
Is there anywhere I can look in Access to find the file path to where the templates the database is populating are saved?

Thanks.

yop

I don't know off the top of my head to be very honest with you, must be 10 years since I worked with it. I will see if I can root out something tonight if I get a chance.
Where you run the report from, I am presuming its a button of some sort?
Have you looked at the DESIGN mode and what properties are behind that button or are you used to going into that side of the code?
Thanks

krazyklown

How exactly do you generate the invoices? For instance, do you open the database, click a button and the invoice is saved to a file? Or do you directly print them out to a printer.

There are two primary ways it could be done - as Yop has suggested, the database may run the query and export the data into an external Word document in a specific location and a copy is saved to file.
Alternatively, Access has inbuilt reporting which basically allows you to create a report view (kind of like a word processor except you reference fields in the table or query to pull the data into the report. The report can then be saved to the hard drive as an excel file or pdf.

It is crucial that before you make any changes that you take a back up of the database ( where ever the database is stored on disk, create a folder called backup and copy and paste the database into the folder (this assumes that the data the database references is not in a linked database). Then at least you have some safety in terms of a fallback position. If i was in your position, i would copy a version of the database into a folder and fool around with it until i understood how it functions.

Westport_belle

Hi all,

I made a copy of the database and started messing around with it.

I did think the templates were an external Word file, but it turns out they're using the Access reporting function. So I've managed to sort out the formatting issues and made life a bit easier for myself.

Of course now that people have seen that I've been able to make a few small improvements, they're all throwing out ideas on how to further improve the reports and I've been given the job of implementing a pile of other changes....I've opened a can of worms, and it's my own fault....should have just kept quiet about fixing it up in the first place.

Thanks for your help.

Beano

Westport_belle wrote: »

Hi all,

I made a copy of the database and started messing around with it.

I did think the templates were an external Word file, but it turns out they're using the Access reporting function. So I've managed to sort out the formatting issues and made life a bit easier for myself.

Of course now that people have seen that I've been able to make a few small improvements, they're all throwing out ideas on how to further improve the reports and I've been given the job of implementing a pile of other changes....I've opened a can of worms, and it's my own fault....should have just kept quiet about fixing it up in the first place.

Thanks for your help.

Oh dear. You are now the office Access "Expert". Good luck.

yop

Westport_belle wrote: »

Hi all,

I made a copy of the database and started messing around with it.

I did think the templates were an external Word file, but it turns out they're using the Access reporting function. So I've managed to sort out the formatting issues and made life a bit easier for myself.

Of course now that people have seen that I've been able to make a few small improvements, they're all throwing out ideas on how to further improve the reports and I've been given the job of implementing a pile of other changes....I've opened a can of worms, and it's my own fault....should have just kept quiet about fixing it up in the first place.

Thanks for your help.

LOL, ah plead "thickness"
Well done on getting that far, plenty of videos and help online (not here lol!! )

28064212

Westport_belle wrote: »

Of course now that people have seen that I've been able to make a few small improvements, they're all throwing out ideas on how to further improve the reports and I've been given the job of implementing a pile of other changes....I've opened a can of worms, and it's my own fault....should have just kept quiet about fixing it up in the first place

Put a process in place for change requests. Inform people that if they want changes made in the reports, they must get sign-off from all stakeholders, including the boss, and must make the request in writing. You'd be amazed at how people suddenly don't care all that much about the changes they "need" when they have to do a bit of leg-work