Microsoft Access 2010 Bible

Part III: More-Advanced Access Techniques

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Note
Have you noticed that GetObject is an example of late binding? Access doesn’t care which application is
going to open the file passed as the pathname argument, and Windows does all the work, in any case.

Using GetObject to instantiate an Automation server is a convenient way to open the server on a

particular file. However, this statement will fail if the file specified by the pathname argument

doesn’t exist, or if the filename extension is omitted or not mapped to an application on the user’s

computer.

The class argument is optional, but it’s used to clarify to Windows exactly which Automation

server to instantiate and open. Consider a file such as MyFile.txt. Although Notepad is the

default text editor on most computers, you might want to specify Word as the Automation server:

Dim ObjWord As Object

Set ObjWord = GetObject(“C:\MyText.txt”, “Word.Application”)

Using late binding through the GetObject function is a convenient way to open Automation

servers on arbitrary files. Consider an Access application that contains a list of different files,

including Word and Excel file, images in .jpg and .tiff format, and .mpg and .avi video

clips. Writing Automation code to work with all these file types could be a daunting task, but writ-

ing a few lines of code using late binding greatly simplifies the task.

Note
The specified document is opened in the server application. Even if you omit the parameter, you must still
include the comma (,).

The class parameter is the same parameter that’s used with the CreateObject function. See

Table 22.1 for a list of some class arguments used in Microsoft Office.

TABLE 22.1

Class Arguments for Common Offi ce Components

Component Class Argument Object Returned

Access Access.Application Microsoft Access Application object

Excel Excel.Application Microsoft Excel Application object

Excel Excel.Sheet Microsoft Excel Workbook object

Excel Excel.Chart Microsoft Excel Chart object

Word Word.Application Microsoft Word Application object

Word Word.Document Microsoft Word Document object