Adding multiple attachments causes form duplicates

Question

We enter data into our database via Forms.  When I attach more than one file using the Attachment control, duplicate forms appear for each attachment: if I attach three seperate files, three forms with the identical info appear as you scroll through each record in the form view.  The duplicates do not appear in the Table, however.  This appearance of replicate forms for each attachment makes it appear that we have more records in the database (it will say 1 0f 80 records, for example, when we only have 74 records) and this can confuse some data enterers.  How can this be avoided/corrected?

Answer 1

Hi Trisbuffer,

Is your form based off of the table directly or is it based off of a query? If it is based off of a query, did you just select the attachment field name or did you expand the attachment field and select <Your Attachment Field Name>.FileData? If you used any of the attributes of the attachment field like .FIleData within your query or if you put a control on the form that is based off of one of these attributes, it will then list each attachment within its own record. So if id 1 has an attachment field with 3 attachments in it, you will see something similar to:

ID 1 – Attachment 1

ID 1 – Attachment 2

ID 1 – Attachment 3

ID 2 – No Attachment

ID 3 – No Attachment

I would look at your query or form to see how you added the attachment field to the form. If you don’t want to see a record for each attachment, then you need to ensure you only add the attachment field itself and not one of the attributes of that field.

The following article talks about attachment fields:

Attach files and graphics to the records in your database -http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/access-help/attach-files-and-graphics-to-the-records-in-your-database-HA001213852.aspx

And this article talks about querying multi value fields. Multi value fields work very similar to Attachment fields, so when you query them you can see similar results. This article talks about the different results (# of records) you can see depending on how you query these multi value fields.

Using multivalues fields in queries -http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/access-help/using-multivalued-fields-in-queries-HA010149297.aspx

Hope that helps.

Best Regards,

Nathan Ost

Microsoft Online Community Support

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