Embedded pictures

[George]

Hello!

I noticed that the when we set the picture property of a button or another
control as embedded, it takes a lot of place.
Is there an explication that show why the Access file encrease in size by
more than the picture size (even if it is a bitmap, a format that is normaly
heavy)

Exemple:
An mdb without picture would take 4 MB
the same file with pictures would increase to 40 MB with only 400 KB of
pictures. In JPEG format.

Is it because Access uses a non efficient compression to include the image
file?

Thank you in advance for any suggestion!

PS: I know that I can set the picture to Linked, and the Access file will
not increase in size, but I cannot do that because I want to keep its
portability as easy as it is now.

 

[Arvin Meyer [MVP]]

If you code as a BLOB, you'll roughly double the size of the image. If you
want to use less than 100 bytes per record, you can (and I do) store the
picture in the file system and call it in the form's Current event. I have
demo app that shows how to do this:

http://www.datastrat.com/Download/Picture2K.zip

 

[George]

Hi Arvin,

Thank you for your response, but I'm talking more about the pictures that
you set in a button or on a form or anywhere more than storing them in a
table as a link (like you've done it in your app) or as blob fields.

What I've done so fare is changing the property of many buttons on my forms
only to enhance their look. And I cannot afford to load the picture each
time from an external folder and set the picture property of all my
customized controls on the load event of the form.

Thanks again and sorry for the misunderstanding in my original question.

 

[Arvin Meyer [MVP]]

The only way to reduce the size is to load the images as required. You can
use the Current event in code to do that:

Private Sub Form_Current()
Me.cmdWhatever.Picture = "C:\AppPix\buttonpic.bmp"
Me.cmdAnother.Picture = "C:\AppPix\buttonpic2.bmp"
' etc. ...
End Sub
--
Arvin Meyer, MCP, MVP
http://www.datastrat.com
http://www.mvps.org/access
http://www.accessmvp.com