Storing and Attaching pdf Files

[EddieN1]

I have Access Front End and SQL Server 2012 Backend.

I have an application where I would like to "attach" pdf documents to Customers. There are two types of documents. One type will be the same document for many customers. For example, all the customers in one state might have a blank State Sales Tax Exempt form attached. The other type will be associated with a particular customer. For example, once they complete and sign the Sales Tax Form, we want to attach the particular pdf form to the customer.

Here are my design questions:

1. Should the pdf images be stored in SQL Server tables as images or should I put the pdf files in a specified folder on the File Server?

2. If on the SQL Server, how should I call the documents up for viewing or printing?



Is there an article someplace that explains the pros and cons of each approach... or even have a better solution?

Thanks, Eddie

[rpeare]

Personally, I never store objects within a table, I always store the path to the item. The shortfall in this, of course, is that if someone removes that file from the location you're hosed, but as long as your target directory is relatively secure from this type of activity you should be fine.

If you store the actual document in a table you will have a huge bloating issue over time.

[pbaldy]

I don't know of an article, but I also store the path to a file rather than the file itself.

[June7]

Access has a 2GB size limit and embedding a lot of large documents in tables can use this up fast. I don't know about SQL Server (I think it is a BLOG data type).

I certainly wouldn't repeat the same document into multiple records. For printing 'blank' documents, might build a replica with an Access report. In the case of one complex document, I embedded a jpg image of the blank document as a background in report.

As for opening external files, review http://allenbrowne.com/func-GoHyperlink.html

[EddieN1]

Okay, I found it. However, you must be using SQL Server 2012 or higher. See...

http://www.mssqltips.com/sqlserverti...l-server-2012/

Hope this helps someone else. Thanks, Eddie