VBA Tutorial for Microsoft Access

Welcome to our VBA Tutorial for Access Applications home page.  This VBA tutorial section provides an overview of our dozens of VBA tutorial and programming examples. Web site navigation for our Access VBA coding samples is listed to the right.  The VBA tutorials range from simple code syntax examples to more complex programming tasks such as APIs and dynamic programming with global variables.

VBA programming, VBscript and Access VBA scripts provide dynamic aspects to your forms.  We make extensive use of Access VBA programming in all of our Access relational database applications – we never use macros. Many of our VBA examples can be used in other Microsoft Office projects such as Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Word.  After reviewing these examples visit our case studies where you’ll see how we make use of these tools to create Contact Management, Inventory & CRM databases for our clients.

Use of macros to perform these operations should be avoided because of the limited ability to document programming code and to view the entire process within macros.  Also, when performance is an issue, VBA code will be much faster than macros.

Next we have an overview of the VBA tutorials and program coding examples contained in the main section topics.  If the Visual Basic help found below isn’t what you are looking for then please contact us for help.

Summary of our Access Visual Basic Lessons:

Links to Specific Programming Examples	VBA Examples for Access 2007 Visual Basic
Access to Google Earth	Do you have data point defined by latitude/longitude coordinates?  See how simple it is to use Google Earth to display your point data on a map.
Access Email via Gmail	No need to use Outlook to send emails out from Microsoft Access.  See how simple it is to use a Gmail account to send emails to your clients and prospects and sales associates.  This is a way to keep sensitive information off of your company’s computer.
VBA Age Calculation	One would think that calculating a person’s age would be straight forward but with leap years and current days in the month it is more involved than we suspected.  This VBA lesson demonstrates two methods for determining a person’s age.
Change Case VBA Code	Sending out marketing letters?  Often you’ll get a database that contains messy data in reference to the use of upper and lower case letters.  Here is the VB6 code to convert the names and address to proper case. All Visual Basic beginners should know these techniques.
Concatenate Records Example	In this example we take a normalized table of data and change it to non-normalized – more like we would see in a spreadsheet.  A Visual Basic advanced programming example.
CreateQueryDef	Create stored queries at runtime or create temporary queries to save database space and to make your database less complicated for future maintenance.
Current Database Path	Want to know on what drive and directory your database is currently running from.  See our VBA instruction for determining current database path and name.
Detail-Master Updates	Retrieving master records based on the characteristics of the detail record.
VBA Field Validation	Ever hear of garbage in garbage out.  Here are some VBA techniques to keep the garbage out.
Field Value New-Old	One method to make a form remember an old value after it is changed.  Good for making audit trails.
FindFirst Method	You can use the find first command to search through records quickly and manually coordinate two forms.
Get Access Version Number	Trying to figure out if your user’s Access version is up to date?  The Visual Basic code shows how to determine the Access version number.
VB Global Variables	Storing values for the life of a program instance using global variables.  A powerful VBA tutorial example.
Global Parameters	Use global variables here, there and everywhere – including passing parameters to queries and forms.  This is one of our most popular VBA tutorials.
Form Label Link	Make your programs come alive and more user-friendly by making field labels intelligent links.
Combo Box Files List	See the VBA Dir$ function creates a drop down list of folders for you users to select from.
Visual Basic  Mail Merge	Similar to regular mail merge but all controlled in Access so you don’t have to jump to MS Word.
Read Outlook Email	Communicate with Microsoft Outlook from Visual Basic.  Read email messages by using the Outlook API.
Sort VB Recordset Using Binary Sort	All programmers need to know how to sort a list quickly.  See this VB recordset example to learn one of the most efficient and easiest VB sort routines: The recursive visual basic sort routine.
Recordset Filters VB6 Code	Learn how to filter VB recordset using 3 VBA methods.
Reference Nested Forms and Fields	Take a short cut – reference your forms using the direct access approach.   In this example we reference a deeply nested sub form control.
RTF Report Email Attachment	Send an RTF formatted to someone via VBA and your email system.
Access Select Case Statement	Stop using complexly nested if statements and replace them with a Select Case statement.  Select case makes coding and code maintenance a breeze.
Send Email with Access VB	In a previous example we learned how to read Outlook emails.  Here we demonstrate the VBA code to send emails and attachments.
Transaction Processing	Want to make sure your data gets saved or updated.  Use transaction processing methods to guarantee that no data gets left behind.
VBA Function Examples	Visual Basic functions from A to Z and everything in between.

Visual Basic Tutorials:

Access-Google Earth
Age Calculation
Change To Proper Case
Email via Gmail #1
Send Gmail Email #2
Inactivity Logout Code
Outlook Email
Read Email Access
Email Attachment
Send Outlook Email
Running Sum
Denormalize Records
Stock Quotes
CreateQueryDef
Find Database Path
Detail-Master Update
Data Field Validation
Field Value New-Old
FindFirst
Access Version
Global Variable Parameter
Global Variables
Active Labels
Files List Box
Mail Merge
Quick Sort
Recordset Filters
Reference Form Field
Select Case
Access Transactions

Visual Basic Function Examples