Refining Table Structure 809
This page has two parts. The top part consists of the following:
● Selector You can click the shaded box at the left end of a row to select the entire
field. You can then insert a row above the selected one, delete the row (thereby
deleting the field), or drag the row up or down to reposition its field in the table.
The selector also identifies the primary key field of the table by displaying the
Primary Key icon (a key with a right-pointing arrow).
Tip If you don’t want a table to have a primary key (for example, if none of the fields
will contain a unique value for every record), select the field designated as the primary
key, and on the Design contextual tab, in the Tools group, click the Primary Key button
to toggle it off. If you want to designate a different field as the primary key, select the
new field, and click the Primary Key button to toggle it on. (You don’t have to remove
the primary key from the current field first; it will happen automatically.)
● Field Name column This column contains the names you specified when you created
the table. You can edit the names by using regular text-editing techniques. You can
add a new field by typing its name in the first empty cell in this column.
● Data Type column This column specifies the type of data that the field can contain. By
default, the ID field in a new table is assigned the AutoNumber data type, and all other
fields are assigned the Text data type. With the exception of fields with the OLE Object
and Attachment data types, you can change the type of any field by clicking its Data
Type entry, clicking the arrow that appears, and clicking a new data type in the list.The list of data types.● Description column This column contains an optional description of the field.