Inserting and Retrieving .doc and xls. files in SQL7

[artnature]

I am trying to create an application in VB where I can add and retrieve Microsoft Word documents and Microsoft Excel spreadsheets in a Microsoft SQL7 database as recordsets. I know that in order to save all the formats as well as their contents I need them to be inserted in an image data type. Could anyone give me some tips in order to achieve this.
Thanks in advance.
Any other alternative suggestions are welcome.

[Iouri]

Why won't you save the path to the doc in the database. When you call this field just shell to the document in the path

Iouri Boutchkine
iouri@hotsheet.com

[artnature]

Thank you so much for your advice, but I would still like to save it all the data in the SQL Server for security reason. If you know how to write and read image data type from VB I will really apreciate it. Thanks again.