view numeric data in access

[Guest]

When analyzing data, it must be in numeric format. It is easier to look at
data in text format. Is there a way to view numeric values as text in an
Access table without actually changing the data? ie: data for the answer
'yes' to a survey is entered as 1 and 'no' is entered as 2, but when you view
the table you want to see yes and no instead of numbers.

 

[Dirk Goldgar]

When analyzing data, it must be in numeric format. It is easier to
look at data in text format. Is there a way to view numeric values
as text in an Access table without actually changing the data? ie:
data for the answer 'yes' to a survey is entered as 1 and 'no' is
entered as 2, but when you view the table you want to see yes and no
instead of numbers.

If you view a query of the table, or better yet a form or report based
on a query of the table, then the query can translate from the actual
number stored to a text value of "yes" or "no", using one of the
built-in functions like IIf() or Choose(). See the help file for
details.

Even better, for this specific case of yes/no values, is to define the
field in the table as a Yes/No field, which can only have a value of 0
(= no, false) or -1 (= yes, true). Then if you want, you can set the
field's Format property to "Yes/No", which will automatically cause
those values to be displayed as "Yes" or "No", although the numeric
value of the field remains unchanged.

 

[Guest]

SPSS does this very gracefully, but what I do in Access to duplicate this
feature is create a crosswalk table (lets say xw-YesNo) that has two fields:
field 1 is your 1 or 0 in numeric format
field 2 is Description in text format.
So your data values would be (1,Yes) and (0,No).

Next, you link (or build a relationship) between the two tables on the
numeric link, or you can choose to only use the table inside queries. You
display the Description field in your queries, or reports.

By the way, ALWAYS make sure you have no null values in your primary table
or you will lose valuable counts ... it will not link the null and thus
eliminate it from your query.