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Rich text display(including tab stops) from memo field

I have a memo field to store text in a database. I need to be able to have tab stops, special characters, color, and standard bold, italic and underline when displayed on a form and when user enters data. How can this be accomplished? I have the Richtext control that comes with Visual Basic, but apparently I don't know how to use it. I think this question is probably easy for someone who knows.

cekman

The only way I know how to do this in Access is with a 3rd party tool. I know of one - Total Access Memo by FMS. (I am NOT affiliated with this company in any way). I ordered the Access 95/97 version and it is really cool. However - it has one MAJOR drawback: When printing the formatted memo fields on reports, there is no support for Can Grow/Can Shrink. This may cause problems depending on what you need to do for printing. The basic cost is somewhere around $99 for a single copy - but you need to by a royalty -free license to distribute it to multiple users. ($399???) The company's phone number is 703-356-4700. Their homepage is http://www.fmsinc.com.

Hope this helps - I haven't heard of anything else specifically for Access.

glover110697

ASKER

I would like to continue this topic. Although I can see where the answer provided by cekman will work, I believe that there is a way to do it using the rich text ActiveX control from vb5. I can get close but have yet to figure out how to disable tabbing on the entire form when the rtf control gets focus and re-enable it upon losing focus. The examples in the vb5 component tools quide do not seem to work.

cekman

I am interested in ActiveX control you're talking about. I have Access 97, but no t VB5 - should the control come with Access97 also?

What are some of the features that it is supposed to do?
Do you know if it supports CANGROW/CANSHRINK types of properties?

I could really use this feature in most of my databases, but the tool I mentioned previously just is too limited by the report drawback.

Thanks for any info you can give me!
CEkman

glover110697

ASKER

To CEckman,
I don't have the reference with me at work but I don't remember it having can grow and can shrink properties. It does have many other nice features. There is no 64k limit on it, it can be bound to a memo field, all of the text formating is supported (Ex. font,font size, color,underline, strike thru etc. I have Access Pro 97 and the control did not come with it. It did come with VB5 Pro.
If you get this tab thing to work please drop me a note
glover@lub002.lamar.edu

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cekman

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glover110697

ASKER

Carla,
It works! Thank you so much! <big grin>. Now if I can just get use to "twips" for specifing widths and margins, etc. I think I am going to like programming in VB and Access. (I have been a COBOL programmer for over 25 years and I am teaching myself VB and Access.)
I could not be more pleased with your help.
Thanks again.
Ray Glover glover@lub002.lamar.edu