creating a help file

what i have now is a command button that says 'press for help' and it will
open a form. the form is popup=yes and modal=yes. what i want in the form
is a word or wordpad file that may be longer than the window that pops up.
the problem, is that there are no scroll bars to be able to read up and down
the form's embedded file.

can i add these bars or is there a better way to do this?

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Message posted via http://www.accessmonster.com

I created a two-field tblHelpTopics with a HelpID Field (AutoNumber) and
HelpTopic Field (Memo). I populated the first Record, which AutoNumbered as
1. I created a Form, with RecordSource of:

SELECT tblHelpTopics.HelpID, tblHelpTopics.HelpText FROM tblHelpTopics WHERE
(((tblHelpTopics.HelpID)=1));

as created with the Query Builder. On this Form I created a TextBox with
Control Source of HelpText, and in the Format page of its Properties Sheet,
set Scroll Bars to Vertical.

It works just as I expected it to work... I can use the scroll bars to show
text that does not initially show, or I can put the cursor in the text and
move it past the end of the visible text and it will scroll.

Are you saying that your Text Box in a Bound Form does not work this way?

Larry Linson
Microsoft Access MVP
I

i followed what you have here and it almost worked. the only thing i can't
figure out is where the actual help text goes. your table is tblhelptopics
and your two fields are helpid and helptopic. should this be helpid and
helptext? based on your select statement, wouldn't this be trying to pull a
field called helptext when the helpid=1? and i assume that i can use this
same exact system to create other forms for help files (i need 3 total) where
the help id =2 and then =3 in the exact same select statement. i would just
have to create a new form for each one of those, correct? or is there a way
to assign a value to the command button that activates the helpfile form to
choose a helpid so that only one helpfile form can be written? OR am i just
missing something really obvious in the placement of my text that labels me a
total beginner?

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Message posted via AccessMonster.com
http://www.accessmonster.com/Uwe/Forums.aspx/databases-ms-access/200511/1

> before you read this, please keep in mind that i'm new to access (6 weeks

Yes, my fumbling fingers typed the wrong name.

Yes, that is what I had in mind.

Yes, if you don't have a need to have more than one "help window" displayed
at a time, then you can use the same form.

The DoCmd.OpenForm statement can have either a Filter, or WhereCondition
(the wizard uses stLinkCriteria as the variable name for this one)
argument... its VBA code, but easy to build for this purpose, as you can
hard-code the value. Use the Wizard to build the command button and it will
write the code for you except for the following: Just before the
DoCmd.OpenForm insert the line

stLinkCriteria = "[HelpID] = 2"

where the number is the HelpID field of the Help Record you want to show.
The final think you will have to do is to put the cursor on the
DoCmd.OpenReport statement, press one, and choose the display format that
will make yours the Dialog you describe. You'll need to add a couple of
commas follwing the stLinkCriteria, then type "acDialog" without the quotes.

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But instead of using this approach, you might go to MVP Stephen Lebans site,
http://www.lebans.com, and look in the Site Table of Contents page for RTF.
He has a control that will display RTF, and you can save your Word documets
as RTF.

"kaos...@comcast.net via AccessMonster.com" <u15580@uwe> wrote in message
news:577619d4d7644@uwe...

Or, you can consider a non_ocx approach of multiple text boxes that
are sized to fit the text contained therein. Also a Lebansian (sm)
function. Search his site for fTextWidthOrHeight.

You can then code multiple helptext entries and change their
formatting appropriately. I have mine set to examine the first
character of the helptext entry and if it is a left brace, pull the
string out between that left brace and closing right brace. Once the
string is pulled out, it examines it for formatting tags such as "i"
for italic and "b" for bold. I also control fontsize by reference to
other characters (e.g., 2 means Font Size = 12). You can obviously
develop this to whatever extent makes sense.

The result is a series of separately formatted paragraphs, various
levels of indent, etc. that appear to be one continuous "help" screen.

Not as good as true rtf, but no ocx.

mike