How to search the contents of attachments (Word and PDF files)

[hixkix]

I have a Desktop Access 2010 32bit DB. One of my field types is "Attachment". It is for attaching large MS Word and PDF documents. Is there a way I can give users the ability to search the contents of the uploaded attachments?

[Rawb]

I've never used the Attachment column type myself, but a little bit of searching in Google has me thinking that you can't do what you're asking, at least not really.

You can, however, save the attachments to disk and then manipulate them (i.e. search them) as necessary, one at a time.

Keep in mind though, that the PDF file format isn't a MS format, so you might need an Adobe plugin to be able to properly search PDFs. And, if it's a PDF of something that was scanned/faxed, then you're essentially dealing with a picture and you won't be able to search it at all.

[hixkix]

I have had a couple people tell me it is possible. But it will take some skillful coding. All of the documents consist of text and images. The users will need to be able to search the text only. I found one site that looks promising but it will take me a while to cypher due to my limited skill in this area
http://dfenton.com/DFA/download/Access/FileSearch.html

Thanks

[June7]

I reviewed that link and the sample db. Nothing there that allows search of documents in Attachment field. This is a utility that allows search of Windows folders.

Some scanners can scan OCR (optical character recognition) PDF.

Access has a 2GB size limit. Embedding documents can chew that up.

[hixkix]

I may have to go this route and instead of attaching the files I can provide them with the DB or just go to excel and forget access for this project.

[orange]

I agree with June that it does not deal with attachments.
Regarding the David Fenton approach, you may look at the discussion that took place in this thread for reference.
https://www.accessforums.net/programming/help-modiying-file-searcher-32497.html

[hixkix]

Thank you June and Orange for your responses. When I first considered Access for my project, I was not aware of the size limitation. I require about 30GB for my project. Access will not be a viable option.

[June7]

Have you considered external files instead of attachments and save file path into record?

[hixkix]

I have considered external files. The final product is to be read-only and it will be distributed tomany different companies. My hope was to make it a single file download thatdid not need links-to-documents paths resolved after downloading, modification ofinfrastructure, or additional software installed by each individual. The final product will be a massive tech manual with pictures and manuals written by 50+ authors. The records would consist of author's info and manual info/description. If I use external, then I will likely need to host a site myself.

[June7]

As long as the external documents are in the same parent folder as the database, code can use CurrentProject.Path. So just the document name (and maybe subfolder path) needs to be stored in table. Construct the document file path with concatenation:

CurrentProject.Path & "\" & [fieldname]

If the db is split design and documents are saved with the backend on central server location (users run frontend from their workstation), getting the path of the backend file is a little trickier. http://www.ammara.com/access_image_f...base_path.html