Microsoft Access 2010 Bible

Part III: More-Advanced Access Techniques

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Table External File Type Filename(s)

CONTACTS dBase 5.0 CONTACTS.DBF, CONTACTS.DBT, Contacts.

INF, CONTACTS.MDX

Customers Excel CollectibleMiniCars.xls

CustomerTypes HTML CustomerTypes.html

Sales Paradox 3.X Sales.DB

tblSales Access Chapter16_Link.accdb

tblSalesLineItems Excel 8.0 tblSalesLineItems.xls

tblSalesPayments Access Chapter16_Link.accdb

xlsProducts Excel 8.0 Products.xls

The data linked or imported into Access applications comes in a bewildering variety of formats. There

is no practical way to document every possible type of import or linking operation in a single chap-

ter. Therefore, this chapter discusses the essential steps required to import or link to external data,

and gives a few examples demonstrating how these processes are performed in Microsoft Access,

instead of filling page after page with examples that may or may not be relevant to your work.

As you’ll soon see, knowledge of the external data format is critical to a successful import or link-

ing operation. You must have some notion of the external data format before you can successfully

import data into your Access application or incorporate the data into an Access database through

linking. This chapter points out many of the issues involved if you choose to import or link to

external data; it’s intended to serve as a guide as you perform these operations in your Access

applications.

Looking at How Access Works

with External Data

Exchanging information between Access and another program is an essential capability in today’s

database world. Information is usually stored in a wide variety of application programs and data

formats. Access, like many other products, has its own native file format, designed to support ref-

erential integrity and provide support for rich data types, such as OLE objects. Most of the time,

Access alone is sufficient for the job. Occasionally, however, you need to move data from one

Access database file to another or use data from another program’s format.

Types of external data

Access can use and exchange data among a wide range of applications. For example, you may need

to get data from other database files (such as FoxPro or dBASE files) or get information from a SQL