Scientific Notation

[Guest]

I am writing a database that needs to import scientifica data in one unit,
convert it into SI Units and display these values on the reports. There is
no problem doing the maths, the problem I am having is that the unit of
measure field that needs to be displayed alongside the values contains
letters from the Greek alphabet (e.g. Mu) and superscript characters, e.g.
106/ul should display as 10 with the 6 in superscript and the u should
display as the Greek character Mu.

Word and Excel can display these values OK, but if you copy and paste cells
from Excel into an Access table it appears as 106/ml ! I was thinking of
substituting the problem characters with punctuation characters so that I
could then parse the data when reporting and manipulate what is displayed in
code in an effort to get it to show correctly, but to further compound the
problem I appear to be unable to reporoduce letters from the Greek alphabet
on reports (even when choosing a font such as Arial Greek) and cannot show
superscript text.

Any help appreciated

 

[John Nurick]

Hi Pete,

As you've discovered, Access text fields and textbox controls don't allow
any kind of character formatting.

Assuming you're using Access 2000 or later, one way to do what you want is
to use a Unicode font that includes a full set of superscript numerals and
the Greek characters that you need. Lucida Sans Unicode seems to be
installed on most modern Windows computers; also look out for Arial Unicode
MS and (I think) Arial Universal. The better type foundries will be able to
offer more.

Alternatively, you could use a rich text control instead of the standard
Access textbox, and have your code build (and perhaps store) the appropriate
RTF strings to display what you need. This means you can use any mix of
fonts and sizes you want. There are various rich text controls available,
including a free one at www.lebans.com that was built for use with Access.

Another possibility is to automate Word.