Access MVP Albert D. Kallal has published a new article on his website showing how implement a “soundex” search in Access. For the uninitiated, a soundex search returns not only exact matches, but also any near matches that sound like the search term. For example, searching for Cindy also returns Cyndi, Cynthia, or Cinda.

Here’s an excerpt:

“While for many, the idea of an intelligent search form in Access that allows fuzzy name matching sounds like real magic. To us folks who been around a long time we instantly recognize this as a soundex type of search.

“While we are not going to build the next great search engine in Access, it is rather easy to build a search based on names that sound the same. The end result is a search form that behaves much like using any modern search engine on the web where exact name spelling matches are not required for the search.”

Albert includes code samples and an example database that you can download and experiment with.

Read the full article here.

Thanks Albert!

Albert D. Kallal is President of HCS Consulting Group and has a great collection of Access articles on his site.