Access 2007 for Starters: The Missing Manual

Append Queries

An append query selects records from a table, and then inserts them into another table. (Technically speaking, appending is the process of adding records to the end of a table.)

You may create an append query for a number of reasons, but usually you do it to transfer records from one table to another. You may want to use an append query to transfer records from one database to another. This trick's handy if you have duplicate tables in different databases (perhaps because different people need to use the database on different computers).

Note

Once you've finished copying records to a new table, you may want to follow up with a delete query (Section 7.4) to remove the old versions.

Append queries also make sense if you're working with a super-sensitive database. In this case, you might enter new records in a temporary table so someone else can look them over. When the inspection's finished, you can then use an append query to transfer the records to the real table.

Append queries are a bit stricter than other types of action queries. In order to transfer the records, you need to make sure the two tables line up. Here are some guidelines:

• Data types must match. The fields you select (from the source table) and the fields you're heading towards (in the target table) must have matching data types. However, the names don't need to match. You can configure your query so that information drawn from a field named FirstName is placed into a field name F_Name, provided they're ...