Formatting issue

[Guest]

I am linking a table to an XLS File. The field in XLS is text format. The
cells in the begining records include an account number followed with account
name. (The prior user entered it this way). The succeeding records only use
the account number (which is a whole number, excluding any dashes, etc).
When I view the data in Access, The first records appear as should and the
records with just the account number show (Num!). Is there a way for me to
fix this without having to edit in Excel?

 

[Pete D.]

You need to create an import specification with the type of data you are
trying to import. Without specifying the data types Access and Excel will
make best guess from the first row of data as to what type it is. You can
sometimes fix this for the occasional import by seeding the first row with
the right type like a date or time but if the next row in the spreadsheet is
text you won't know what it will be imported as. At work we have vehicles
with registration numbers like 90E01234, these import as scientific notation
instead of text without a specification.

See access help for specific instructions on importing.

 

[Guest]

I set up a dummy row as my first record but Access did the same thing.