Database Reference
In-Depth Information
Copying to and from other Office programs
Sometimes the quickest and easiest way to get information into or out of a database is to
just copy it and paste it where you want it. This technique works particularly well for getting
data out of an Access table and into Word or Excel. Information that you paste into a Word
document becomes a Word table, complete with a heading row containing the field cap-
tions as column headings. Information that you paste into an Excel worksheet appears in
the normal row-and-column format.
Getting data into another Access table by using this technique is a little more complicated.
The data you are pasting must meet all the criteria for entering it by hand (input mask, vali-
dation rules, field size, and so on), and you must have the correct table cells selected when
you use the Paste command. If Access encounters a problem when you attempt to paste a
group of records, it displays an error message and pastes the problem records into a Paste
Errors table. You can then troubleshoot the problem in that table, fix whatever is wrong,
and try copying and pasting again.
TIP
To copy an entire table from one Access database to another, open both databases,
copy the table from the source database to the Microsoft Office Clipboard, and then paste
it into the destination database. You can paste the table data and/or table structure as a
new table or append the data to an existing table.
In this exercise, you'll copy and paste records between an Access database table, an Excel
worksheet, and a Word document.
SET UP
You need the GardenCompany10 database you worked with in the preceding
exercise and the Shippers workbook located in the Chapter10 practice file folder to com-
plete this exercise. Start Excel and open a blank workbook. Then if necessary, open the
GardenCompany10 database, open the Customers table in Datasheet view, and follow
the steps.
1
Point to the row selector of the first record in the table, and when the pointer
changes to a right arrow, drag through six records to select them.
2
On the
Home
tab, in the
Clipboard
group, click the
Copy
button.
KEYBOARD SHORTCUT
Press Ctrl+C to copy a selection to the Clipboard. For a list
of keyboard shortcuts, see “Keyboard shortcuts” at the end of this topic.
