Pictures as a field in a table

P

Pete Dochers

Hi guys - am sure this is basic and possible but how do I save pictures into
a row of a table?

Am on Access 2002.

Can some1 please let me in so that i can display a picture for each record.

Many thanks to any replys
 
S

SusanV

Hi Pete,

With the table in Design View, create the field as type "OLE Object" then in
your form you will right-click the field and select "Insert Object." If you
choose "Create from file" you can keep your database smaller by linking to
the file rather than embedding the file itself, but if this is a shared
database you should use full UNC path so all users will be able to see the
image. (To do this, browse via Network Neighborhood rather than a mapped
drive to the share holding the images)
 
B

bob

You can use 'OLE Embedding' ('Insert Object' command, or Bound OLE Frame), but this is the cause of a wide
range of common problems, especially with JPEG. There can be a storage overhead of anything up to 200
*times* the original file size, so you can hit the Access size limit with just a few hundred pictures,
not to mention the huge performance hit. There are also configuration issues – all users need to maintain
an identical setup of graphics applications and file registrations, and if a user installs some new graphics
application the database can stop working (as far as the pictures are concerned, anyway). In fact, installing
Office 2003 will remove the necessary 'OLE Server' application that is used to display JPEG and certain
other formats. Also, the data is stored in a proprietary fashion, so it cannot be used in other applications
or front-ends or extracted back to a JPEG file without quality loss (and loss of metadata, if present).
The 'OLE Linking' option suffers most of the same problems, including the huge overhead.

If you need to store the image in a table field then you should use 'raw-binary' (blob) storage. This
avoids all of these issues, and the images will require only as much space as they would as disk files.
Implementing this is rather complex (unless you use a third-party component, in which case it’s just like
using numeric or text controls and fields), but more info on the subject including links to various solutions
is available here:

http://www.ammara.com/articles/accesspictureole.html
 
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