TIFF/TIF files not viewable in Access 2003 - why?

[Wade]

I have an image control on a form that is linked (as opposed to embedded) to
either a tif file or jpg file (i.e. the "Picture" property of the control is
set to "C:\image.tif" or "C:\image.jpg") and if the control is linked to a
tif file (doesn't matter what the size of the tif file is - even as small as
35K) I receive the message "Microsoft Office Access doesn't support the
format of the file 'filename.tif,' or file is too large. Try converting the
file to BMP or GIF format.". But if the control is linked to a jpg (I've
used jpg files as large as 2MB) everything works fine. If I convert the tif
file to a jpg, everything works. But merely copying the flt filter from an
Office XP installation (tiffim32.flt) to the Filters folder (c:\program
files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Grphflt) where the other filters are,
still doesn't allow the tif file to be viewable in Access 2003.

As mentioned above, tif's and jpg's are both viewable in Access 2002 (XP) -
the tif filter in installed in the graphic filter folder when Office or
Access 2002 is installed, but there is no such filter in Office or Access
2003 - even in the Conversion Pack.

Does anyone know why...
1. MS took this functionality out of the image control in Access 2003?
2. Other than converting to a supported file format, is there any way to
view a tif image in an image control in Access 2003?

 

[Wade]

Thanks for the info, I appreciate your response.

Unfortunately, according to the redist.txt file, the dll is not supported on
WinXP systems. It is supported on W2k, NT, & Win98 systems though.

Also, the file doesn't appear to be available at the microsoft web site
anymore, but I think the updated version (which does appear to support XP)
is here (English version):

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...9c-df12-4d41-933c-be590feaa05a&DisplayLang=en

...which must go through a validation process before it can be downloaded.

In our situation, it looks like its going to be easier to just convert all
our tif's to jpg's - and hope MS doesn't discontinue support for jpg's too.

 

[Bruce Rusk]

If you have to keep the file in TIFF format (for example because other
software needs to access/edit it), it's not too hard to convert it on the
fly; there's a good freeware control that does this quite quickly-- GFLAx,
part of the GFL SDK available at http://xnview.com

Assuming you're not working with multipage tiffs, you can just convert them
to a standard filename, e.g., tempimg.bmp in the working directory, and
loading that into the control at display time. I've found that the
conversion is fast enough if the files aren't huge and you convert to BMP
(which makes for large files but ones that can be written and read very
quickly since there's no encoding/decoding overhead).

If you decide to convert all your graphics to another format, depending on
what they are and how they're stored within the TIFF file, I'd recommend NOT
converting them to JPGs, because it's a lossy format whereas many TIFF
compression schemes (especially for monochrome images) are lossless, and
TIFF can handle a wider range of color depths (monochrome, grayscale, etc.)
that JPG doesn't. PNG might also be a better choice--it's lossless, and
handles monochrome. JPG is really only suitable for photos and the like, not
for line art, scanned text, or anything with large areas of continuous
color.

 

[Samir Shah]

I'm not sure I understand. I am using Windows XP, and also want to display
TIF files using Access 2003; I was able to do it before with 2001. So I
downloaded that file, the gdiplus.dll. If I replace my current version of
that file will 1) my system be fine, and 2) will Access be able to view TIF
files?

If "no", then what should I do?

Samir Shah

 

[Bruce Rusk]

No, as I understand it the GDI+ dll that is already in WinXP can handle TIFF
images fine. There is no need to download another one. For example, if you
have TIFF images in a folder and go to the thumbnail view in explorer,
you'll see thumbnails of the TIFFs.

The issue is that, by default, Access doesn't use this DLL to display images
on forms (it uses an image control). What the code of Stephen Lebans' page
does is use the GDI+ dll functionality that is already on your XP system to
display the image in a form. All you need to do is integrate the code form
Stephen's site.

 

[Samir Shah]

I downloaded the Access mdb file from Stephen's website and got it working
now. Thanks for your help everyone.

Samir

 

[Kristi O'Gorman]

I tried downloading the microsoft Database that Stephen had on his website,
and tried uploading a .TIF image with it. It gave me an error about an
invalid file type. What am I doing wrong? Any help would be greatly
appreciated.

 

[BoardBurtonVT]

I am having this exact same problem. It seems like the filters built
in to the mdb file that he had on his site do not include the ability
to open .TIF images? It is a neat little application, but I have yet
to see someone give a real explanation about how they have fixed this
problem yet. If Stephen can explain to fix the .TIF image problem
using his code, that would be great.