Microsoft Access 2010 Bible

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CHAPTER

Importing and

Exporting Data

IN THIS CHAPTER

Selecting the import and

export options that are right

for you

Creating import specifications

Exporting to external tables

and files

I

n Chapter 16, you discovered how Access is used to link to external data
sources and files. A link allows you to view data stored in an Oracle
database, an XML file, or many other databases and data formats. So, in
the case of linking, Access is used as an interface to data stored outside of
Access.

In this chapter, I show you that importing and exporting are quite different
from linking. An import process adds data to an Access database from some
external source, such as an XML file. An export from Access means you cre-
ate something outside the Access database, like an XML or Excel file contain-
ing data stored in Access.

On the CD-ROM
This chapter uses various files for importing, plus two Access databases:
Chapter17_1.accdb and Chapter17_2.accdb. Both databases are used
for importing and exporting examples. If you haven’t already copied these files
onto your machine from the CD, you’ll need to do so now. The CD also con-
tains a number of auxiliary files in different formats (.xls, .xml, .dbf,
.txt, and so on). Be sure to copy these to your computer as well.

Looking at Your Options for

Importing and Exporting

Before examining the processes of importing and exporting, let’s take a brief
look at the various options for importing and exporting data with Access.