(c) 1996 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
This document provides complementary or late-breaking information that supplements the Microsoft Access for Windows 95 documentation.
HOW TO USE THIS DOCUMENT
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To view the Readme file on screen in Windows Wordpad, maximize
the Wordpad window. To wrap the text, click Options on the View
menu, click the Text tab, and then click Wrap To Ruler.
To print the Readme file, open it in Windows Wordpad, Windows Write,
Microsoft Word, or another word processor. Then select the entire
document and format the text in 10-point Courier before printing.
CONTENTS
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Starting Internet Assistant
About the HTML Documents Internet Assistant Creates
Creating and Using Templates
Using the OutputTo Action
Troubleshooting
STARTING INTERNET ASSISTANT
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1 Open your Microsoft Access database.
2 On the Tools menu, point to Add-ins, and then click Internet Assistant.
3 Follow the instructions in the Internet Assistant dialog boxes.
You can select one or more tables, queries, forms, and reports. You can also choose a template, which Internet Assistant applies to all the .htm files it creates from the database objects you selected. For more information about templates, see "Creating and Using Templates" later in this document.
ABOUT THE HTML DOCUMENTS INTERNET ASSISTANT CREATES
Internet Assistant outputs the datasheet of a table, query, or form as one Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) document. If your datasheet has many records, it might be better to create several queries that divide the records into smaller groups. You can then add hyperlinks to navigate between the documents. (The maximum number of records that Microsoft Access can output from a datasheet is approximately 65,000.)
For the most control over the presentation of your data, create a report. For multiple-page reports, Internet Assistant outputs each page as a separate HTML document with hyperlinks to the other pages in the report.
Internet Assistant outputs the data from your datasheets and reports but does not output graphical elements such as lines, control borders, and objects created with another application, such as background pictures, bitmaps, graphs, and Microsoft Excel PivotTables. You can add graphical elements and other objects either to the template or to the HTML document created by Internet Assistant.
CREATING AND USING TEMPLATES
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To create attractive documents, you can use the templates included with Internet Assistant or create your own using any HTML editor, such as Word Internet Assistant or Front Page.
There are two versions of each template included with Internet Assistant. One version is for datasheets and the other is for reports; for example, stones.htm and stones_r.htm. The suffix _r indicates a report template, which includes placeholders for navigating between the pages of the report. When you output datasheets and reports during the same session with Internet Assistant, select the template for datasheets. Internet Assistant automatically applies the report template to any reports you selected as long as it has the same name as the template for datasheets and has the _r suffix.
You can use any .htm file as a template. The template can include items such as a background pattern, logo, graphics, and text. For the best results, you should also include the placeholders identified in the following paragraphs. Internet Assistant uses these placeholders to correctly place the output from your database objects in the HTML document and link the pages of multiple-page reports. You should create two templates with the same name. Make sure the template for reports has the navigation placeholders and includes the suffix _r in its name.
Internet Assistant replaces the following placeholder with the name of the database object:
<!ACCESSTEMPLATE_TITLE>
If you omit this placeholder, Internet Assistant uses the name of the .htm file as the title.
Internet Assistant replaces the following placeholder with the output from your datasheet or report:
<!ACCESSTEMPLATE_BODY>
If you omit this placeholder, Internet Assistant replaces anything you have in the <BODY> element with the datasheet or report output.
Internet Assistant uses the following navigation placeholders to link the .htm files created from a multiple-page report:
If you omit these placeholders, the .htm files created from your report won't be linked.
The following sample shows where to position the placeholders in a template used for reports. (For a template used for datasheets, you can omit the navigation placeholders).
<HTML>
<TITLE><!ACCESSTEMPLATE_TITLE></TITLE>
<BODY>
Text or graphics you want to appear before the data.
<BR><BR>
<!ACCESSTEMPLATE_BODY>
<BR>
Text or graphics you want to appear after the data.
The Setup program adds HTML (*.htm) as an option for the Output Format argument of the OutputTo macro action. You can't specify a template when you output a database object using the OutputTo action. However, you can use any HTML editor to modify the file.
TROUBLESHOOTING
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If Internet Assistant is unable to output a database object, it could be because:
* You don't have the necessary permissions for the object or for the underlying table or query of the object.
* You don't have permission to create files in the destination folder or there isn't enough disk space in the destination folder.
* If the object you are attempting to output is a linked table or gets its data from a linked table, the path to the linked table might be invalid.
If extended characters aren't output correctly in the HTML document, you are probably using a non-English version of Windows 95 and an English version of Microsoft Access. To output all characters correctly, change the font used in the datasheet, form, or report to MS Sans Serif.
