ACC1x: How to Add Items to the Help Menu

ID: Q88648

The information in this article applies to:

SUMMARY

The Help menu items that appear at the top of the screen in Microsoft Access can be supplemented so that your own custom menu items appear. This can be done by creating an entry in the MSACCESS.INI file.


MORE INFORMATION

You can add your own entries to the [Menu Add-Ins] section of the MSACCESS.INI file. You can use this feature to invoke a macro, an Access Basic program, or an Access Basic function from a Help menu item. To add to this section of the MSACCESS.INI file, follow these steps:

  1. Close Microsoft Access if it is open.


  2. From your Windows Program Manager, start Notepad.


  3. In Notepad, open the file MSACCESS.INI (this file is located in your Windows directory).


  4. Scroll down to the bottom of the file, add a blank line, and type the following:

    [Menu Add-Ins]


  5. Add any menu items that you want to appear in the Help menu below the line you just typed. Add lines using the following syntax:

    <menu label>=<menu action>

    Substitute the text that you want to appear in the Help menu for <menu label>, and the macro name, user-defined function, or Access Basic function that should be run for <menu action> in the example above.


For example, to add a Help menu item called Customer Form that runs a macro called OpenCustForm, the [Menu Add-Ins] section of the MSACCESS.INI file would read: 


   [Menu Add-Ins]
   Customer Form=OpenCustForm


To add a Help menu item called Run Daily Update that runs a user-defined Access Basic function called RunUpdate(), you would add the following to the MSACCESS.INI file: 


   [Menu Add-Ins]
   Run Daily Update==RunUpdate()


Note that the second equal sign (=) in the above example is required for running user-defined or other Access Basic functions.

You can also define an underlined character in your Help menu item that is accessible with the ALT key. To do this, place an ampersand (&) in front of the character that should be underlined. For example, to create a Help menu item called Show Message with the M underlined that calls the Access Basic MsgBox() function, add the following to the MSACCESS.INI file: 


   [Menu Add-Ins]
   Show &Message==MsgBox("This is a message")


You can add multiple items to the [Menu Add-Ins] section of the MSACCESS.INI file. The example below includes all the examples in this article: 


   [Menu Add-Ins]
   Customer Form=OpenCustForm
   Run Daily Update==RunUpdate()
   Show &Message==MsgBox("This is a message")


After you have made these changes to the MSACCESS.INI file, save the file and then close Notepad. When you restart Microsoft Access, the items in the [Menu Add-Ins] section will be available from the Help menu. 


Keywords          : kbui UifOthr 
Version           : 1.0 1.1
Platform          : WINDOWS 
Issue type        : kbhowto

Last Reviewed: March 10, 1999