I'm trying to insert a picture in my form, it's an inventory list form, and I converted the file to Bitmap and I get this error message when I drag the bitmap file over: "Microsoft Access can't read the OLE object because communication was interrupted.  If the OLE server application is located on a network server, make sure your computer is connected to it".  It is on a network server and it is connected, I have confirmed this.  The original picture was a 2.3 Mb jpeg and when I converted to a bitmap it became a 20.5 Mb file.  Would the larger file size be an issue?  I know we have limitations on our server with emailing files larger than 10Mb, but this is not email.  Would the file size be the issue?  Can I convert the bitmap file to a smaller size?

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Reply from Richard Rost:

I would guess that the error is caused by the size of your file. Yes, that's pretty big. First, try the JPG directly. It might work. JPG and GIF files work OK on some systems, they just don't work reliably on ALL systems.

Second, you might want to consider a different technique for displaying your images. I have a whole seminar on ACCESS IMAGING. Basically, storing images in your database works OK for small files, and when you don't have a lot of them, but for BIG files (or lots of files) the best solution is to just store the image on your network (or PC) drive and save the path/filename in your database.

I cover several different methods for doing this in the seminar, and there's also a TIP VIDEO that explains a good technique too.

Oh, and yes, it's sometimes possible to shrink the size of a bitmap. Get it on your screen and perform a screen capture of it (press PRINTSCREEN, paste into PAINT). You'll lose some resolution if it's a HUGE file, but that's usually good enough.