Chapter 6: Working with Datasheet View
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The Find and Replace dialog box lets you control many aspects of the search. Enter the value you
want to search for in the Find What combo box — which contains a list of recently used searches.
You can enter a specific value or choose to use three types of wildcards:* (any number of characters)
? (any one character)
# (any one number)To look at how these wildcards work, suppose that you want to find all the rows with Ford at the
beginning of the Description field in tblProducts. Using Ford* in the Find What box will
find rows beginning with Ford. Then, suppose that you want to search for values ending with
Mustang; you’d use *Mustang. If you want to search for any value that begins with Ford, ends with
Mustang, and contains any number of characters in between, use Ford*Mustang.Cross-Reference
For more information on using wildcards, see Chapter 5.
The Match drop-down list contains three choices that eliminate the need for wildcards:l (^) Any Part of Field: If you select Any Part of Field, Access searches to see whether the
value is contained anywhere in the field. This search finds the Ford anywhere in the field,
including values like Ford Mustang, 2008 Ford F-150, and Ford Galaxy 500.
l Whole Field: The default is Whole Field, which finds fields containing exactly what
you’ve entered. For example, the Whole Field option finds Ford only if the value in the
field being searched is exactly Ford, and nothing else.
l (^) Start of Field: A search for Ford using the Start of Field option searches from the begin-
ning of the field, and returns all the rows containing Ford as the first four characters of the
description.
In addition to these combo boxes, you can use two check boxes at the bottom of the Find and
Replace dialog box:
l Match Case: Match Case determines whether the search is case-sensitive. The default is not
case-sensitive (not checked). A search for SMITH finds smith, SMITH, or Smith. If you check
the Match Case check box, you must then enter the search string in the exact case of the field
value. (The data types Number, Currency, and Date/Time don’t have any case attributes.)
If you’ve checked Match Case, Access doesn’t use the value Search Fields As Formatted (the
second check box), which limits the search to the actual values displayed in the table. (If you
format a field for display in the datasheet, you should check the box.)
l (^) Search Fields As Formatted: The Search Fields As Formatted check box, the selected default,
finds only text that has the same pattern of characters as the text specified in the Find What
box. Clear this box to find text regardless of the formatting. For example, if you’re searching
the Cost field for a value of $16,500, you must enter the comma if Search Fields as Formatted
is checked. Uncheck this box to search for an unformatted value (16500.)