Access® 2010 Bible

Chapter 17. Importing and Exporting Data

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Selecting the import and export options that are right for you

• Creating import specifications

• Exporting to external tables and files

In Chapter 16, you discovered how Access is used to link to external data sources and files. A link allows you to view data stored in an Oracle database, an XML file, or many other databases and data formats. So, in the case of linking, Access is used as an interface to data stored outside of Access.

In this chapter, I show you that importing and exporting are quite different from linking. An import process adds data to an Access database from some external source, such as an XML file. An export from Access means you create something outside the Access database, like an XML or Excel file containing data stored in Access.

Note

This chapter uses various files for importing, plus two Access databases: Chapter17_1.accdb and Chapter17_2.accdb. Both databases are used for importing and exporting examples. If you haven't already copied these files onto your machine from the CD, you'll need to do so now. The CD also contains a number of auxiliary files in different formats (.xls, .xml, .dbf, .txt, and so on). Be sure to copy these to your computer as well.

Looking at Your Options for Importing and Exporting

Before examining the processes of importing and exporting, let's take a brief look at the various options for importing and exporting data with Access.

Microsoft Access is often described as a "landing pad" ...