This is a question that I get more often than you might think:  How do you embed a document, such as a Microsoft Word document, into a field in a table in Microsoft Access?  It may seem like the answer to this would be complicated, however it actually is quite a simple process.

To begin, let’s define what you will actually be embedding.  You will be embedding what is called an OLE Object.  OLE stands for “Object Linking and Embedding”.  It is a standard created by Microsoft that allows you to create an object in one application (say a Microsoft Word document) and embed or link it into another application (such as Microsoft Access).  For a slightly more detailed definition from Webopedia, click here.   In our example, I will be using a Microsoft Word document.

First, go to your table in Design View.  You can do this by following steps 1-3 shown below:

1. Click on Tables.
2. Highlight your table.
3. Click on Design View.

You should see a screen like this come up:

 

This table has two fields.  One is the ID field, which is just an auto-number to be our primary key.  The other field is the test field.  This is where we will be embedding our object.  It has been defaulted to Data Type “Text”.  Change this to “OLE Object”.  Close the table and save the changes to it.

Now, let’s embed a Microsoft Word document into a sample row.  Open the table by double clicking on it. You should get a screen like this:

Right click on the empty test field of the first row.  Select Insert Object from the menu.  The following menu will appear:

Here are your options:

1. Create New - You can pick an object to create from the list box and create an empty object of that type into the test field.  You can then double click on that field and that object will open up in the native application.  For example, a Microsoft Word document will open up in Microsoft Word.  You can then save changes and it will be stored in the database. *Note: be careful, if you just close a document while it is open it will save, make sure to undo your changes before closing if you don’t want them to be saved.
2. Create from File - You can copy an existing object into the database, and then edit that copy in the database (like for a new object) without affecting the original object.  If you choose to link it (there is a “Link” checkbox for this option), the original object will be changed when you edit it in the database and vica-versa.

Choose either an existing Microsoft Word document or create a new one and click “Ok”, and there you have it.  Try editing the document for yourself and see the results.  Also, play around with the options a bit, this tutorial is just a quick way to get started with embedding objects. There are also multiple different options for using this in Forms, depending the purpose of your application.