Absolute novice

[Francis Hookham]

Absolute Access novice with many years with XL (actually started with
Multiplan!).

Minimal experience of Filemaker on Mac some years ago.



How do I open a blank Access database so I can paste in 70+ rows with 70+
columns (records and fields) from XL? Or import rather than paste?



Attempts so far resulted in some fields ending up on a second 'row'. It
seems as though I must format a database with the right number of
records/fields before pasting.



Your guidance please.



Francis Hookham

 

[Damian S]

Hi Francis,

If you have the data in an Excel Spreadsheet, first check that the data is
all neatly formatted, eg: you have a single row at the top with the column
names in it, each column has a name etc.

Then use File-->Get External Data-->Import from the menu and follow the
prompts for using an Excel file. Tick the box that says "column headings on
first row" and confirm that the data types are what you want, then complete
the wizard.

It is (should be) as simple as that!!

Hope this helps.

Damian.

 

[John Vinson]

Absolute Access novice with many years with XL (actually started with
Multiplan!).

That will put you ten yards behind the starting line...

Minimal experience of Filemaker on Mac some years ago.

and that about five yards further back. <g>

More seriously: the worst problem learning a complex program such as
Access can be approaching it with preconceptions about "how things are
always done" from other programs, which are just SOMEWHAT similar.

How do I open a blank Access database so I can paste in 70+ rows with 70+
columns (records and fields) from XL? Or import rather than paste?

That's one of the things. Copy and paste is VERY common in Excel, and
very rare in Access.

Attempts so far resulted in some fields ending up on a second 'row'. It
seems as though I must format a database with the right number of
records/fields before pasting.

Try using File... Get External Data... Import into a new table; or set
up a table with your desired fields (which for simplicity should match
your spreadsheet header row) and use File... Get External Data...
Import into this table.

Note that a very good spreadsheet design is likely to be a very badly
denormalized database design (in the same way, a well normalized table
can be very difficult to use in Excel, requiring an inordinate number
of VLookups). You may want to import the data, and then develop a
properly normalized set of tables, and run Queries to migrate the
spreadsheet data into the normalized tables.

John W. Vinson[MVP]

 

[aaron.kempf]

copy and paste in excel is necessary because excel has no ETL and
'action query' capabilites.

excel should be able to copy values from 1 cell to another -- without
writing any code.

as it is excel is worthless find some newbie db kid in india that can
help you out

-Aaron