789
CHAPTER
Integrating Access
with Other
Applications
IN THIS CHAPTER
Using Automation to integrate
with other applicationsUsing Microsoft Word to
create an Automation
exampleUsing Microsoft Outlook to
collect dataA
s companies standardize their computer practices and software selec-
tions, it’s becoming more and more important to develop total solu-
tions — in other words, solutions that integrate the many procedures
of an organization. Usually, various business functions and processes are
accomplished by using different software packages, such as Microsoft Word
for document preparation, Microsoft Exchange Server and Microsoft Outlook
for mailing and faxing, Microsoft PowerPoint for presentations, and
Microsoft Excel for financial functions. If the organization for which you’re
developing has standardized on the Microsoft Office suite, you can leverage
your knowledge of Visual Basic for Applications to enhance all these products.
Automation (formerly called OLE Automation) is a means by which an appli-
cation can expose objects, each with its own methods and properties, that
other applications can create instances of and control through code. Not all
commercial applications support Automation, but more and more applica-
tions are adopting Automation to replace the outdated Dynamic Data
Exchange (DDE) interface. Consult with a specific application’s vendor to
find out whether it supports or plans to support Automation in the program.
Note
In this chapter the word Automation is capitalized to distinguish programmatic
Automation from application automation (such as adding VBA code to a but-
ton’s Click event).
On the CD-ROM
This chapter uses a database named Chapter22.accdb. A Word template
file, Thanks.dotx, is also included for use in this chapter. If you haven’t
already copied these files onto your computer from the CD, you need to do so
now. Because this chapter relies on the use of VBA code, the Chapter 22 data-
base includes the code and forms that are used by this chapter’s examples.