Part I: Access Building Blocks
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FIGURE 2.16The Design tab of the ribbon
The controls in the Design tab affect the import table design considerations. Only a few of the con-
trols shown in Figure 2.16 are described in the following sections. You’ll learn much more about
the other buttons in the “Creating tblCustomers” section, later in this chapter, and in subsequent
chapters of this book.Primary Key
Click this button to designate which of the fields in the table you want to use as the table’s primary key.
Traditionally, the primary key appears at the top of the list of fields in the table but could appear any-
where within the table’s design. Moving a field is easy: Simply left-click on the gray selector to the left of
the field’s name to highlight the field in the Table Designer, and drag the field to its new position.Insert Rows
Although it makes very little difference to the database engine, many developers are fussy about
the sequence of fields in a table. Also, particularly when assigning an index or composite index to a
table, you want the fields to be next to each other in the table’s field list.Cross-Reference
Composite keys, consisting of multiple fields combined as a single key, are discussed in detail in Chapter 3.
The Insert Rows button inserts a blank row just above the position occupied by the mouse cur-
sor. For example, if the cursor is currently in the second row of the Table Designer, clicking the
Insert Row button inserts an empty row in the second position, moving the existing second row
to the third position.Delete Rows
Conversely, the Delete Rows button removes a row from the table’s design.Caution
Access doesn’t ask you to confirm the deletion before actually removing the row.
Property Sheet
The Property Sheet button opens the table’s Property Sheet (shown in Figure 2.17). These
properties enable you to specify important table characteristics, such as a validation rule to apply
to the entire table, or an alternate sort order for the table’s data.