How do I combine text and number in table?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Guest
  • Start date Start date
G

Guest

I am uploading my inventory into Access from Excel and in one of the fields
being the (Model #) I have quite a few which will read 5000E or 5023E4 and so
on. Is there a way I can manipulate the table in Access to accept this? I
am doing a table for each manufacturer we have which amount to 52
manufacturers we represent, so to ADD to this question, is there a (template)
I can create in Access so I can easily add "ALL" manufacturers to this
template and still keep them separate from each other for future linking
purposes? Thanks so much.
 
On Thu, 22 Dec 2005 21:22:02 -0800, "Avid Marine" <Avid
I am uploading my inventory into Access from Excel and in one of the fields
being the (Model #) I have quite a few which will read 5000E or 5023E4 and so
on. Is there a way I can manipulate the table in Access to accept this?
Click to expand...

Sure; use a Text field. This could get tricky because 5023E4 *IS* a
valid number in scientific notation - 50230000 to be exact. But if
these are identifiers rather than numeric values with which you will
be doing calculations, a Text datatype is preferable in any case.

Create your table, empty, first, and then append the data from your
linked spreadsheet. Otherwise Access must guess at what the
appropriate datatype might be based on the first few rows - and it's
likely to guess wrong.
I am doing a table for each manufacturer we have which amount to 52
manufacturers we represent, so to ADD to this question, is there a (template)
I can create in Access so I can easily add "ALL" manufacturers to this
template and still keep them separate from each other for future linking
purposes? Thanks so much.
Click to expand...

You're on the wrong track. A table for each manufacturer is simply
WRONG. If each Manufacturer has multiple products, you would need only
two tables: Manufacturers, with a primary key of ManufacturerID (or if
the names are unique, stable, and not awfully big) the manufacturer's
name; and an Items table with a unique ItemID (perhaps a primary key),
a ManufacturerID as a link to the manufacturers table, and a ModelNo
(don't use # in fieldnames, it's a date delimiter and can get
confusing). This will let you simply add a record to a table when you
bring in a new manufacturer, rather than changing the structure of
your database.

John W. Vinson[MVP]
 
Back
Top