ACC1x: How to Disable the Menu Bar When Previewing a Report

• Microsoft Access versions 1.0, 1.1, 2.0

SUMMARY

Although you can display a custom menu bar in a form in Microsoft Access version 1.x, there is no way to display a custom menu bar when previewing a report. However, you can completely remove the menu bar when previewing a report using Microsoft Windows API calls. This article demonstrates a sample Access Basic function that you can use to remove the menu bar when previewing a report.

Microsoft Access version 2.0 has built-in functionality to create a custom menu for a report. For more information about creating custom menus, search for "custom menus" using the Microsoft Access 2.0 Help menu.

MORE INFORMATION

The technique presented in this article removes the menu bar when in Print Preview. To also remove the toolbar, choose Options from the View menu and set Show Toolbar to No.

The Access Basic code below needs to be called for each report every time you switch to Print Preview. If you display another report after calling this code, Microsoft Access will re-establish the Print Preview menu.

NOTE: The menu for the report is also re-established if switching from the report to a form and then back to the report. If the window from which the report is called is maximized, then the display may become erratic. Symptoms of an erratic display include duplications of the Control menu icon and the Min/Max icons before the report appears.

To remove the menu bar that appears when you are printing a report, use the following steps:

1. Create the new module below.

   NOTE: In the following sample code, an underscore (_) is used as a line- continuation character. Remove the underscore when re-creating this code in Access Basic.

   NOTE: You may have some Microsoft Windows API functions defined in an existing Microsoft Access library; therefore, your declarations may be duplicates. If you receive a duplicate procedure name error message, remove or comment out the declarations statement in your code.

       '******************************************************************
       'Declarations section of the module
       '******************************************************************
       Option Explicit
       Declare Function FindWindow% Lib "user" (ByVal lpClassName As Any, _
                          ByVal lpCaption As Any)
       Declare Function SetMenu% Lib "User" (ByVal hWnd%, ByVal hMenu%)
   
       '==================================================================
       'The following function removes the Microsoft Access menu bar by:
       ' - Retrieving the Microsoft Access window handle with FindWindow.
       ' - Removing the Microsoft Access menu bar with SetMenu.
       '==================================================================
       Function RemoveAccessMenu ()
         Dim hWnd%, dummy%
         hWnd% = FindWindow("OMain", 0&)
         dummy% = SetMenu(hWnd%, 0)
       End Function
   
   

2. In the report in which you want to disable the menu bar, set the OnFormat or OnPrint property of the first section that prints (such as the Report Header section) to call the RemoveAccessMenu() function:

         OnFormat: =RemoveAccessMenu()
   

REFERENCES

"Programmer's Reference Library: Microsoft Windows 3.1 Guide to Programming Reference," Volumes 1-6, Microsoft Press, 1992