Mathematical Symbols (2000)

Topic

New Reply

Is there a way to write quadratic equations or use math symbols (phi, theta etc.) within an Access text/memo field? The field will have to contain regular English text as well, not just the mathematical equations.

Reply | Quote

Replies

These symbols are available as fonts in Word, WordPad, Excel, PowerPoint, and Access (and probably more). They are also available in the character map feature under “System tools”, although not all applications recognize these characters (the major Microsoft office apps do).

Reply | Quote

Greek characters are unicode characters (2 bytes per character) and access text/memo fields don’t accept them, they only hold ASCII characters (1 byte per character)

this means you should be able to store any character in the ‘Windows Characters’ section of the character map, but none outside that

Reply | Quote

My experience has been that out-of-the-box Access only allows one font for a given text/memo field. The trick may be to find a single font that has most of the normal alphanumerics you need plus the greek characters (replacing, for example, the international characters that are usually in the high end of the character map).

There maybe an add-in for Access out there that permits in-field formatting. Anybody know of one?

Maybe someday Access will catch up with Excel in this regard (which since Excel 97, I believe, has allowed in-cell formatting).

Tom

Reply | Quote

you have to remember that Access is a database. When you look at a text field, you are looking at data not presentations of data. The idea of a font or format for a field in access has no meaning whatsoever. You could potentially write an access report which reports your data in another font, and in this case, you could use characters which are displayed as the relevant greek characters in that font, but this could get messy and difficult to manage. The field viewed in a normal text font would be meaningless.

Reply | Quote

Adam,

True, the contents of a text field is data, but I guess what I was envisioning was a format option (in table definitions of text/memo fields as well as for controls in forms and reports) of “RTF” or “HTML” in addition to the existing options (colors, justification, etc. or nothing at all). The difference, of course, is that the data itself would have to include the formating information. True, this would make the data “messier”, but it would certainly jazz up the presentation of a text or memo field in tables, forms, and reports. A fair analogy is the body of an e-mail message.

At a minimum, it sure would be nice to have “in-line” formatting for label controls on forms and reports. For example, it shouldn’t be the nuisance that it is to embold one word in a form label.

Tom

Reply | Quote

You CAN have these symbols in your text/memo field, and it is no problem at all. Don’t change the font you currently are using for your text/memo field (unless you just want to). You can select and copy the characters you need from the character map feature of Windows and paste them into your Access text/memo field. As an example, if the text field uses the Arial font and you paste the character theta into it, you will see that symbol. Instead of debating this, just go ahead and try it. Open your table or query and type your name in one of your text fields. Now open character map and select, then copy one (or more) of the characters you are interested in using. Next right click in the Access text field right after your name and choose paste. This text field will now contain your name followed by the special characters you just pasted into the field. This will display correctly in the table, query and reports.

Reply | Quote

willyboy,

I tried it, but I’ve still gotta debate it. Your suggestion works as long as the symbol you want is included in the font defined for the field. For example, the greek character “mu” (

Reply | Quote

Willyboy,

You are right, it seems text and memo fields do accept unicode characters.

I did try exactly what you suggested before answering the original post, but I must have done something wrong, since I got an unprintable character symbol instead of the symbol I copied from character map. Perhaps I did it in Access 97 on one of my work PCs (can’t try it again now since I left that contract on Friday). I just tried it in Access 2000 and it works fine.

Apologies for misleading anyone with my previous answer.

(I am always in favour of trying before debating by the way )

Reply | Quote