J
Jack Steel
I have a fairly complex Access system of forms with subforms, tabbed
dialogs, etc. What I'd like to do is to be able to produce a report that
shows all of the information on all parts of all forms, that is a hardcopy
that shows all information in the system. The total over all pages is
probably something like 900 fields.
I first tried saving forms as reports, but found that it fails in obvious
ways. Saving a form with a tabbed dialog (control) as a report only shows
one tab - this isn't adequate.
My current approach is to write out the forms into individual ascii files
with SaveAsText; then, I have code to read through these files and populate
a report with appropriate controls (by creating an ascii file that I then
read in via LoadFromText). Amazingly, it kind of works so far; I change the
vertical position of items on subsequent forms so that they appear one
beneath the other in one report. Even if I only get a rough cut at the
report and need to polish it by hand, this will save me an enormous amount
of time.
I'm experimenting as I go to get this working, and I'm now facing the
embedded tab controls. Ideally I'd create some new report labels to mark
where each page starts, but I notice (for example) that every control has a
GUID, and I have only guesses as to what these mean. If I want to generate
the ascii fragment for, say, a label, how should I do it?
I'd love to get a formal specification of what the ascii files' format is,
or hear anyone's ideas on how to accomplish what I'm trying to do.
dialogs, etc. What I'd like to do is to be able to produce a report that
shows all of the information on all parts of all forms, that is a hardcopy
that shows all information in the system. The total over all pages is
probably something like 900 fields.
I first tried saving forms as reports, but found that it fails in obvious
ways. Saving a form with a tabbed dialog (control) as a report only shows
one tab - this isn't adequate.
My current approach is to write out the forms into individual ascii files
with SaveAsText; then, I have code to read through these files and populate
a report with appropriate controls (by creating an ascii file that I then
read in via LoadFromText). Amazingly, it kind of works so far; I change the
vertical position of items on subsequent forms so that they appear one
beneath the other in one report. Even if I only get a rough cut at the
report and need to polish it by hand, this will save me an enormous amount
of time.
I'm experimenting as I go to get this working, and I'm now facing the
embedded tab controls. Ideally I'd create some new report labels to mark
where each page starts, but I notice (for example) that every control has a
GUID, and I have only guesses as to what these mean. If I want to generate
the ascii fragment for, say, a label, how should I do it?
I'd love to get a formal specification of what the ascii files' format is,
or hear anyone's ideas on how to accomplish what I'm trying to do.