About adding an unbound picture to a form, report, or data access page

About adding an unbound picture to a form, report, or data access page

Adding a picture to a form, report, or data access page differs depending on how you want to use the picture and on whether you're working in a form, report, or data access page.

This topic provides reference information about:

Forms and reports

Data access pages

Forms and reports

How you add an unbound picture depends on whether you want it to appear as a background picture (watermark) that covers the entire window, or a picture that appears in a control. If you want to add a background picture, you use the Picture property of the form or report. If you want to add a picture that appears in a control, you use an image control or an unbound object frame.

Whether you use an image control or an unbound object frame depends on whether you want to be able to edit the picture directly from the form or report. If you won't need to update the picture, you can add the picture by using an image control. If you will need to update the picture, you can add the picture by using an unbound object frame. Then if you want to edit the picture, you can double-click the object from the form or report to open the application that you used to create the object. For most unbound pictures, you'll probably want to use an image control, because image controls load much faster than unbound object frames.

You can insert pictures in a form or report or you can link to them. When you insert a picture in a form or report, Microsoft Access stores the picture in your database file. An inserted object is always available. If you modify the picture from your form or report, the picture is changed in your database.

When you link to a picture, you can look at the picture and make changes to it from your form or report, but the changes are stored in the original object file, not in your database file. You can also modify the object file separately; in which case, the latest changes will appear the next time you open the form or report. Linking to a picture is useful for large files that you don't want to include in your database file, and for files that you want to use in several forms and reports; but if a linked object file is moved, you have to reconnect the link.

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Data access pages

How you add an unbound picture to a data access page depends on whether you want it to appear as a background picture (watermark) that covers the entire page, or a picture that appears in a control. If you want to add a background picture to a data access page, you can insert the picture by using options on the Format menu. If you want to add a picture that appears in a control, then you use the image control.

After you add a picture to a data access page, you won't be able to edit it. When you insert a picture in a data access page, the picture is added to the supporting files that accompany the data access pages; the picture is not stored in the data access page. So if you want to move a data access page to a new location, do not copy the data access page. Instead, save the data access page to the new location; the picture is automatically saved with it.

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