Welcome to the MDB Doc pages at Sourceforge.net
Welcome to the MDB Doc pages at Sourceforge.net.
MDB Doc is an add-in for
Microsoft Access 97-2019
that allows you to document the following objects/properties within an Access database to an HTML (the language used for writing web pages) file:
- Database Properties
- Tables
- Queries
- Forms
- Reports
- Macros
- Normal and Class modules
- Form Modules
- Report Modules
- Relationships
- Command Bars
- Function/Sub/Property routines within modules
- Data Access Pages (Access 2000-2019 versions only)
- VBA References (new in 1.4x)
- Ribbons (new in 1.60)
- Import/Export specifications (new in 1.60)
- Indexes (new in 1.64)
It provides an easy way to generate basic system documentation for the objects contained in it. If you use it for many projects, features such as the ability to include a comment for a sub, function or property routine will allow you to
build basic application documentation for your Access based applications very quickly.
There are several preferences that are available within the software to customise the operation of MDB Doc to you or your company's needs.
Full details of the facilities in the software are included in the accompanying Readme file, which I encourage you to read, or it can be viewed from the links in the Feature comparison table below.
Migration from http to https and change of URL, March 2021
In line with modern security best practices, I have decided to use the https option available from Sourceforge.net web hosting. Due to local file security implemented by modern browsers,
CSS will fail to load due to local resource access. My recommendation is to upgrade to the latest version, but if you are unable to do this, a quick fix is to go into the preferences screen and change the setting of StyleSheetPath from
http://mdbdoc.sourceforge.net/mdbdoc151.css
to
https://mdbdoc.sourceforge.io/mdbdoc151.css
Then run the processor to rebuild your report. The CSS styles should reappear. If you don't wish to do this, simply open the file in a text editor of your choice and use search/replace to amend URLs as per above.
Versions of MDB Doc
There are three different versions of MDB Doc available for download at the present time. Please consult the feature comparison table below to determine the best for your needs.
| Feature | Version 1.65 | Version 1.55 | Version 1.51b |
|---|---|---|---|
| Compatible Access versions | Access 2007, 2010, 2013-2019 (1) | Access 2000, XP (2002) & 2003 | Access 97 |
| Named anchors within the file |  Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
| Language used | HTML5 | HTML5 | HTML5 |
| Prompt to overwrite existing files | Yes (if preference set) | Yes (if preference set) | Yes (if preference set) |
| Will report comment in Subs, Functions and Property routines | Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
| Set Preferences for style sheets, output paths, meta tags etc | Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
| Output files meet W3C Accessibility guidelines | Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
| Ability to set which object types are included in the output file? | Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
| Full VBA Source code included | Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
| View details of VBA references | Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
| Support for Data Access Pages | Yes |
Yes |
No |
| Ribbon details from the USysRibbons table | Yes |
No | No |
| Import/Export specifications | Yes |
No | No |
| View output from running it against the Northwind database (2) | MDB Doc 1.65 output | MDB Doc 1.55 output | MDB Doc 1.51b output |
| Download size | 784Kb | 751Kb | 713Kb |
| Download |  Download MDBDoc 1.65 |
Download MDBDoc 1.55 |
Download MDBDoc 1.51b
|
| View Readme file |  View MDBDoc 1.65 Readme [PDF] |
View MDBDoc 1.55 Readme [PDF] |
View MDBDoc 1.51b Readme [PDF] |
(1) MDB Doc version 1.55 will run perfectly on 32 bit versions of Access 2007-2019. However, it will not process the full range of data available to it.
It should work in Access 365, but has not been tested as I don't have this version available.
(2) As the Northwind database out of the box doesn't have the MDB Doc comment features implemented, please click here to look at MDB Doc 1.65's report on its own source code, in which I have used this facility.
Please note that MDB Doc is supplied as a Zip file, you will need suitable software to extract it. Most modern operating systems come with such capabilities built in, but if you don't have anything installed that will read zip files, I can recommend 7-Zip.
MDB Doc Enhancements
The enhancements list has been moved from here to the product enhancements section of Sourceforge. The aim is to centralise this list from the three different ones that were previously available. View the MDB Doc enhancements list.
The Readme.pdf documentation files and associated zip files were republished December 2024 to include a table of contents to improve accessibility. No other change to the software was included.
MDB Doc System Requirements
- MDB Doc requires a full 32 or 64 bit version of Microsoft Access (it will not work with the Runtime version) and the file you want to process must be in MDB or ACCDB format - it cannot handle ADP files or MDE/ACCDE compiled databases.
- Files secured with Access object level security will only cover objects for which you have Read Design permission.
- To view the output, you need a modern web browser. For example, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Edge, Google Chrome or Apple Safari. However, a web browser isn't required to generate the files.
More details on the exact system requirements and limitations are in the Readme file [PDF] included in the download zip file.
MDB Doc 2.0
I have started working on MDB Doc 2.0. Due to personal commitments I have little time to work on this at present. Its main enhancement is adding XML export functionality alongside the existing HTML. At present my test XML exports don't export the full range of data that are currently handled by HTML. The application works by using the MSXML6 parser called from VBA to create the XML file and then saves the resulting item to disk.
- Click to view a comparative list of outputs between MDB Doc 1.65 and 2.03
- Click to download the 2.03 beta.
However, for interested parties, the latest versions of my outputs for northwind and mdbdoc databases. The main outstanding feature still to develop is the module parser. If anybody else is interested in helping with this please contact me through the email address in the readme file.
A lot of work has gone into this so far, and it would be remiss of me not to acknowledge sources used in its development and familiarising myself with XML in general and the MSXML library:
- Programming the DOM in visual basic
- XML DOM reference guide
- Notepad++ with the XML tools plugin
- XML Visual QuickStart Guide, 2nd edition by Kevin Goldberg. Peachpitt Press, 2008