How to Import Data into Your Access

Data entry is often automated through the process of importing data. This is a far simpler and more efficient way of adding large amounts of data into your system with the fewest number of errors.

While it is nearly a guarantee that some manual entry will be required, as often as not, you will be able to automate the process. As an increasing number of records and data arrive through online forms and automated responses, you will quickly find that importing the data is not only simpler, but more accurate than manual entry.

The Process and Your Options

When you import data, you use a file that contains all of the necessary data and load it into your database. The more data you have, the more efficient the method is over having an employee do the data entry. When you have 200 records, each with 50 fields, importing the data is not only more efficient, you will not need to spend a lot of time verifying that the data was entered correctly.

It is possible that fields to not properly align, whether because of a set up problem or something more technical. If you are not certain what the problem is and you need to find an Access repair expert, the experts can take a look and help you resolve your import issue.

Access gives you several options to import data into your database:

1. Use one of your existing tables for the data import
2. Create a new table from the data
3. Link the data at the source (an external file) to the table so that all updates are automatic

You will want to choose the solution that is right for your database. However, the way to import the data is relatively uniform.

Data Import with a CSV File

The following steps walk you through the process, highlighting where the different options are completed. A CSV file is used for the example because it is the most basic file and you are more likely to encounter this type than the others. It also has a wizard associated with it, so that you can get a feel for how to import files.

1. Make sure the file is saved with the .csv extension.

2. Close the file and the table where you want to import the data.

3. Go to the ribbon and click on the External Data tab, then Text File. Alternatively, you can right click on the table after closing it and select Import.

4. Click on the Browse button and select the source file with the data you want to import and the destination table where you want the data added. Choose to Append a copy of the records to the table so that you do not overwrite your existing information. If you have a new table, this will not be necessary.
5. Review the formatting options displayed and confirm the desired format. Once you are done, click Next.

6. Select the desired delimiter. Access will attempt to determine which one to use, but you will need to verify it before you complete the import. If the data has a header row, make sure to click on First Row Contains Field Names so that the row is not imported as data.

7. Click on Advanced if there are more columns than you need to import. Select the field you do not want to include in the import. If you would like to import all of the columns, you can skip this step.

8. Click Next.

9. Click Finish to initiate the process.

10. Click Close.

11. Verify that the data imported Go to the table with the newly imported data and check that the fields ended up in the correct locations for the records.

Author Introduction:

Victor Ren is a data recovery expert in DataNumen, Inc., which is the world leader in data recovery technologies, including repair xls error and word recovery software products. For more information visit www.datanumen.com