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Sunday, December 1, 2002 VOLUME 1 ISSUE 10  
Contact the Editors:
Bill Warner: Compuniq@aol.com
Jim Chapman: jec@iowatelecom.net
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Alpha Five Version 5 versus Access
Alpha Five Version 5 versus Access
by Tom Mills and John Hertzler

Untitled
We are going to present this article is a different format. John Hertzler and Tom Mills have teamed up to show the difference between using Alpha Five version 5 and Access for the task of displaying multiple selection list box to a user. The selections by the user will then be used to batch print mailing labels. Clicking the link below will take you to a demonstration of how this is done with Alpha Five version. Following that is a description of how this functionality is achieved in Access.

Click here to view John Hertzler's demonstration of the 'Alpha Five Way'.

Tom Mills describes how he achieves this functionality using Microsoft Access:

We want to produce mailing labels for events. When we do, it usually consists of: Combine X Y and Z lists and make sure there are no dupes. So we make a combo box with the data source equal to a query:



If we weren't combining lists we could do this in macros. But since we want to combine lists, we have to go to code, and each version of the report duplicates the code. Here is the code for one report:



Private Sub print5160_Click()

On Error GoTo Err_print5160_Click

 Dim db As DAO.Database

  Dim loqd As DAO.QueryDef

  Dim vItm As Variant

  Dim stWhat As String

  Dim stCriteria As String

  Dim stSQL As String

  Dim counter As Integer

  

    stWhat = "":    stCriteria = ",": counter = 0

    

    For Each vItm In Me.CatSelectCombo.ItemsSelected

        counter = counter + 1

        stWhat = stWhat & "'" & Me!CatSelectCombo.ItemData(vItm) & "'"

        stWhat = stWhat & stCriteria

    Next vItm

    If counter = 0 Then

        MsgBox "You did not select a choice from the listbox!"

        Exit Sub

    End If

    

    Me!txtCriteria = CStr(Left$(stWhat, Len(stWhat) - Len(stCriteria)))

    

    stSQL = "SELECT DISTINCT Main.Envelope1, Main.Envelope2, Main.EnvelopeTitle, Main.Envelope3, Main.Envelope4, "

    stSQL = stSQL & "Main.Envelope5, Main.[First Name], Main.[Middle Initial], Main.Envelope6,"

    stSQL = stSQL & "Main.[Last Name], Main.[Company Name], Main.Address, Main.Suite, Main.City, "

    stSQL = stSQL & "Main.State, Main.[Zip Code] FROM Main INNER JOIN Categories ON Main.ID = Categories.ID "

    stSQL = stSQL & "WHERE Categories.Category IN (" & Me!txtCriteria & ");"

    

    Set db = CurrentDb

    Set loqd = db.QueryDefs("LabelQuery")

    With loqd

        .SQL = stSQL

        .Close

    End With

    Set loqd = Nothing

    Set db = Nothing

     

 'Opens label report to print labels, then closes form

 DoCmd.OpenReport "Labels 5160", acPreview, "", ""

 DoCmd.Close acForm, "CatSelector"



Exit_print5160_Click:

    Exit Sub



Err_print5160_Click:

    MsgBox Err.Description

    Resume Exit_print5160_Click

   

End Sub






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