There are various ways to use OLE Object fields with images:
OLE Embedding
OLE Linking
Raw binary data
OLE Embedding and OLE Linking rely on an external application to display the images, and this is a common
source of configuration problems, particularly now that Access/Office 2003 seems to not include OLE servers
for jpeg images.
Additionally, both these approaches can cause a huge storage overhead (anything from 10 to 200 *times*
the orignal file size with jpegs).
With Raw Binary storage you can write code to extract the data to a temporary file and display it in an
Access image control (more below) or use a third party control, such as our DBPix control which binds directly
to the data.
To work with external image files a typical approach is to store the filename in a text field, then display
the image using the Access Image Control. Note that there are some caveats with this, such as the 'Importing'
popup progress dialog and 'scroll too quick' crash (see The Access Web for suggestions and workarounds),
and note that the relevant Office graphics filters must be installed for this to work correctly.
Using a third party control is another possibility here, and may avoid these issues while offering extra
features (eg zoom & pan, asynchronous/background decoding, EXIF viewing etc).
