Access 2013 Bible

Chapter 7: Linking to External Data

IN THIS CHAPTER

Looking at the types of external data and methods for working with them

Linking your Access database to external data

Using linked tables

Splitting an Access database

In Chapter 6, you learned about the types of external data that you can import and export to and from Access. You also learned when to import and export and when to link. This chapter describes the methods for using external data in Access through a live, updating link to the data.

On the Web

This chapter uses the Chapter07.accdb database, as well as several other files that you'll use for linking. If you haven't already downloaded these files onto your machine from this book's website, you'll need to do so now.

Note that, because the point of this chapter is to show how Access works with external data, there are examples of external data that you need to copy to your machine. Unfortunately, when working with external data, Access requires an exact path to each file — it can't work with relative paths. That means that when you copy Chapter07.accdb to your machine, it won't work until you relink the various external files. I show you how to do that in this chapter. For now, be aware that the following tables are linked to the files indicated:

Table	External File Type	Filename(s)
ContactsFixed	Text File	ContactsFixed.txt
Customers	Excel	CollectibleMiniCars.xls
CustomerTypes	HTML	CustomerTypes.html
Products	Excel 8.0	CollectibleMiniCars.xls ...