Expert One-on-One - Microsoft Access Application Development

Helen Feddema

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Copyright 2004 by Helen Feddema.

Published by Wiley Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.

Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

ISBN: 0-7645-5904-4

Feddema, Helen Bell.
Expert one-on-one Microsoft access application development / Helen Feddema.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 0-7645-5904-4 (paper/website)
1. Microsoft Access. 2. Database management. 3. Computer software—Development. I. Title.
QA76.9.D3F4365 2004
005.75’65—dc22
2004001551

Printed in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

1B/RU/QU/QU/IN

Credits

Vice President and Executive Group Publisher
Richard Swadley

Vice President and Executive Publisher
Robert Ipsen

Vice President and Publisher
Joseph B. Wikert

Executive Editorial Director
Mary Bednarek

Executive Editor
Robert M. Elliott

Editorial Manager
Kathryn A. Malm

Technical Editor
Mary Hardy

Senior Production Editor
Fred Bernardi

Development Editor
Emilie Herman

Production Editor
Pamela Hanley

Project Coordinator
Erin Smith

Text Design & Composition
Wiley Composition Services

Proofreading and Indexing
TECHBOOKS Production Services

Dedication

To all the developers who have posted their code on the Internet (and its predecessors) for others to use—you may not have been paid, but your work is appreciated!

Acknowledgments

As always, thanks to my agent, Claudette Moore, for her work on this book project. Much thanks to my editors at Wiley, Bob Elliott and Emilie Herman, and to production editor Pamela Hanley and all the production staff who worked on this book. I am very grateful to my tech editor, Mary Hardy, who has greatly improved the quality of the sample databases by reviewing them in many versions, spotting problems and suggesting improvements.

About the Author

Helen Feddema grew up in New York City. She was ready for computers when she was 12, but personal computers were still in the future, so she got a B.S. in Philosophy from Columbia and an M.T.S. in Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School, while working at various office jobs. It was at HDS that she got her first computer, an Osborne, and soon computers were her primary interest. She started with word processing and spreadsheets, went on to learn dBASE, and did dBASE development for six years, part of this time as a corporate developer. After being laid off in a flurry of corporate downsizing in the 1980’s, she started doing independent consulting and development, using dBASE, ObjectVision, WordPerfect and Paradox.

Always looking for something new and better, Helen beta tested Access 1.0, and soon recognized that this was the database she had been looking for ever since Windows 3.0 was introduced and she saw the gap waiting to be filled by a great Windows database. Since then she has worked as a developer of Microsoft Office applications, concentrating on Access, Word and Outlook.

Helen co-authored Inside Microsoft Access 1.0 (New Riders, 1992), and wrote two books for Pinnacle’s “The Pros Talk Access” series, Power Forms and Power Reports (1994). She also co-authored Access How-Tos for the Waite Group Press (1995), and contributed to The Microsoft Outlook Handbook (Osborne-McGraw-Hill), Que’s Special Edition: Using Microsoft Outlook 97 (1997), Office Annoyances (O’Reilly, 1997), and Outlook Annoyances (O’Reilly, 1998). She also contributed chapters to Que’s Special Edition: Using Microsoft Project 98 (1997) and Sams’ Teach Yourself Project (1998).

Helen co-authored Sybex’ MCSD: Access 95 Study Guide (1998), and contributed chapters on Outlook programming to Que’s Special Edition: Using Microsoft Outlook 2000 (1999), and wrote DAO Object Model: The Definitive Reference for O’Reilly (2000), and Access 2002 Inside-Out for Microsoft Press.

Helen has been a regular contributor to Pinnacle’s Smart Access and Office Developer journals, Woody’s Underground Office newsletter, PC Magazine’s Undocumented Office and the MS Office and VBA Journal (now OfficePro). She is the editor of the Woody’s Access Watch ezine, and writes its Access Archon column.

Helen is a big-time beta tester, sometimes having 7 or 8 betas running at once, mostly Microsoft, but with some from other vendors as well. She has participated in every Access beta from 1.0 to 2003, and is a member of the Access Insiders group.

She lives in the mid-Hudson valley area of New York state, with varying numbers of cats and computers.

Helen maintains a Web page (www.helenfeddema.com) with a large selection of code samples concentrating on connecting Access, Outlook, Word and Excel (including several Access add-ins), and all her Access Archon articles.