Can anyone get me pointed in
the right direction? I would
like to run an Access report (and
view the report) from another
(html based) application. Assume
only the Access runtime on the
client machine...
One way would be to use whatever the "html based" application's language (or
scripting language) equivalent to the SHELL statement, with a command line
that includes a parameter specifying the name of a macro to be run at
startup.
Another would be to use that language or scripting language to employ COM
automation to control Access -- as far as I know, you can do that with the
runtime, but you may require full Access.
Both these would allow you to run the Access application, and run the
report. I am assuming you want to run the report on the server side and view
on the browser side, and because that is out of my normal scope, I don't
have a good suggestion how you can show the report that was run by Access.
With automation, you could save the report as HTML or XML... once that was
done, I'd think it would just be a matter of using the scripting language to
spit the appropriate HTML/XML out to the user's browser.
When I've had colleagues who wanted a report in a web-based application
(e.g., one done in Cold Fusion comes to mind), they used Crystal Reports in
its, er, most expensive version.
So, yes, it's probable that you can run the report but it may not be
possible for the users of the app to view it in their browser.
Larry Linson
Microsoft Access MVP
