"#type!" error on report calculated field

Question

I have a report in Access with 3 fields on it: Width, Height and Area.
Width and Height are pulled from the table the report is bound to, whilst Area should be calculated (height * width). I've set the Control Source of the Area to = [Height] * [Width], but on opening the form the field displays #Type!, in typically descriptive Access errors fashion, with nice use of # and ! to make it impossible to accurately Google... but I digress. I have no idea what #Type! means and Access doesn't want to tell me.

I can't understand this. In the bound table, Height and Width are Integers, and are both populated in the record being viewed (so it's not a NULL problem). If I change the Control Source to something really simple - like =[Height], it spits out #Error! instead (again, thanks for the useful intel, Access. We'd be lost without you). Even = 1 spits out #Error!.

Any idea why Access hates my control sources?

Answer 1

You probably have a name clash, i.e. Access is picking up the Width and Height members of the report object rather than the fields called Width and Height.

I would create a new query and simply rename the problematic fields in it. So, if you're using the query designer:

• add the primary key and any other non-problematic field, then WidthValue: Width and HeightValue: Height as additional columns;
• finally, set the report's record source to be the query rather than the table directly, and update the calculated control formulae accordingly.

Answer 2

This is a pretty simplistic calculation. Any reason why you don't create a query, do the calculation in said query, and bind the report to the query instead? No sense killing yourself trying to figure this out.

In fact, now that I'm thinking about it, Height and Width are probably reserved words, as they're properties of a control. Maybe change them to HHeight and WWidth or something?