Need to Upgrade - 2002 or 2003?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Stephan Golux
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S

Stephan Golux

It seems I have run afoul of an unfixable and acknowledged bug in my
beloved access 97 which has no workaround other than to upgrade.

Current supported upgrades are 2002 and 2003.

2003 appears to use lots 'o system resources, so I am wondering if I am
best to go with the older (2002) version.

Any opinions out here? In particular, which version more likely to make
the conversion of the 97 databases the least painful? Both upgrades
cost the same...

Thanks for any thoughts.
 
Hi Stephan.

There is not a big difference here. Access 2003 is at least as stable as
A2002, and I don't believe there is much difference in resource use. The
security model built into A2003 is ridiculous, but you can switch to Low
Security to avoid that if you are just developing for yourself.

Interested to know which A97 bug is driving you to upgrade. There are many,
many new bugs in Access 2000, 2002 and 2003 in addition to some that remain
unfixed from A97, so may be jumping from the frying pan into the fire.

For a list of some of the flaws, see:
http://members.iinet.net.au/~allenbrowne/tips.html#flaws
 
Hi Allen, and thanks for your input.

The bug I have been experiencing, I articulate like this. Knowledgebase
reference follows below.

I am using an access 97 application that exports a report to RTF format,
which is subsquently emailed to various people.

The main informational field in the report is a free form memo field
which can be very short or very long.

When the report is created in access, the formatting is fine. If you
print it, is fine. No problem.

When exported to RTF (and for that matter TXT or HTML formats) it
appears that the software will sometimes truncate the data. It seems as
if the exporting software wants to let the new format dictate word
wrapping and font leading, which and it isn't always the same as that in
the initial report. If the field in the RTF file would be a line longer
than the field in the underlying report, the last line gets cut off.

This happens consistently.

So, for example:

INITIAL FIELD AS SHOWN IN ACCESS REPORT:

When, in the course of human events,
it becomes necessary for one people
to dissolve the political bands which
have connected them with another

EXPORTED TO RTF:

When, in the course of human events,
it becomes necessary for one people
to dissolve the political bands
which have connected them with

Since, in the RTF version the word "another" wants to be on the next
line, it just gets cut off.

I think that the knowlegebase article to which this refers is:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;288877

Do you have any further insight?

-s
 
Stephan Golux said:
The main informational field in the report is a free form memo field
which can be very short or very long.

When the report is created in access, the formatting is fine. If you
print it, is fine. No problem.

When exported to RTF (and for that matter TXT or HTML formats) it
appears that the software will sometimes truncate the data.
Click to expand...

What if you export the data from a query? Likely not a solution but
I thought I'd ask.

Tony
--
Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP
Please respond only in the newsgroups so that others can
read the entire thread of messages.
Microsoft Access Links, Hints, Tips & Accounting Systems at
http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm
 
"Stephan Golux" replied
But is it fixed in 2002 or 2003?
Click to expand...

Stephan, I cannot give you a definative answer on that.

I have not struck this in A2000 or later, but that does not say much as I
don't use RTF exports very much.

A search at the Microsoft Knowledgebase (support.microsoft.com) does not say
anything about the bug for later versions. A search of these groups at
groups.google.com reveals that A2000 users have struck problems with RTF
exports, but it does not pin it down to this particular bug.

A2003 does give you the option of XML exports, which may be another
alternative.
 
Stephan Golux said:
But is it fixed in 2002 or 2003?
Click to expand...

I don't think anyone has mentioned this yet, but Stephan Lebans has a utility
that allows you to embed the Access Snapshot format within an RTF file. While
still largely an image rather than an editable RTF document, it is an RTF
file-type which eliminates the need for the Snapshot Viewer and (I presume)
fulfills your need for non-MS platform support.
 
Stephan Golux said:
It seems I have run afoul of an unfixable and acknowledged bug in my
beloved access 97 which has no workaround other than to upgrade.
Click to expand...


Actually, what usually fixes the problem for me is to use more liberal
spacing between each field. So, 'loosen' up the spacing between each control
on the report. (increase the white space between each control. By giving
each text box a bit more room on each side I seen it fix a lot of RTF export
problems.

That KB article you mention does talk about hard returns being the source of
problems.

I would open up the spacing a lot between controls...and set if that fixes.
 
I agree that if you can stay with Access 97, do so.

If you are exporting to rtf just to share the file, try exporting as
Snapshot format instead. This is like a bitmap, but much smaller and
I just checked it was available in Access 97.

Also make sure that you have the most recent service pack for Office
97. I think it was SR2.

So far Access 2003 has been rather irritating. I've found scrollbars
that can't get the focus to let them function. I've found that in a
query where I want to show all fields but also want to add a field
criteria that sometimes (and other times not) the option field even
through its marked and NOT SHOW will still come through. I've even
tried reverting to SQL view, copy/paste to new query, etc. with no
success. Yet, I have a similar query that I created that works just
fine. Weird stuff. And I've been developing every day with Access
since 1994.
 
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