Microsoft Access 2010 Bible

Chapter 6: Working with Datasheet View

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Note
The controls in the text formatting group behave differently when the currently selected field in the datasheet
happens to be the Memo data type. When a memo field is selected, you can change the font attributes (bold,
underline, italics, and so on) of individual characters and words in the field, but only if the Text Format prop-
erty is set to Rich Text. The Text Format property (which applies only to the Memo data type) is set to Plain
Text by default.

Opening a Datasheet

Follow these steps to open a datasheet from the Database window:

1. Using the Chapter06.accdb database from the CD, click Tables in the Navigation
   Pane.


2. Double-click the table name you want to open (in this example, tblProducts).

An alternative method for opening the datasheet is to right-click on tblProducts and select

Open from the pop-up menu.

Tip
If you’re in any of the design windows, click on the Datasheet View command in the ribbon’s View group to
view your data in a datasheet.

Entering New Data

All the records in your table are visible when you first open it in Datasheet view. If you just created

your table, the new datasheet doesn’t contain any data. Figure 6.4 shows an empty datasheet and a

portion of the Modify Fields ribbon tab. When the datasheet is empty, the first row contains an

asterisk (*) in the record selector — indicating it’s a new record.

The Modify Fields ribbon tab includes virtually all the tools needed to build a complete table. You

can specify the data type, default formatting, indexing, field and table validation, and other table

construction tasks from the controls in the Modify Fields tab.

The new row appears at the bottom of the datasheet when the datasheet already contains records.

Click the New Record command in the ribbon’s Record group, or click the new record button in the

group of navigation buttons at the bottom of the datasheet to move the cursor to the new row —

or simply click on the last row, which contains the asterisk. The asterisk turns into a pencil when

you begin entering data, indicating that the record is being edited. A new row — containing an

asterisk — appears below the one you’re entering data into. The new-record pointer always appears

in the last row of the datasheet. Figure 6.5 shows adding a new record to tblProducts.