The different windows

Every Access object has two or more views for tables, we make the use of:

1. “Datasheet View”
2. “Design View”

In the “Design View”, we create “tables”, like we have already seen in the previous lesson.
In the “Datasheet View”, we add, edit or delete details to them.
We can always switch between windows by clicking the”View” button.

here

or here

Using “Datasheet View” (“Datasheet View”)

You can create a table in “Datasheet View”, but this is definitely not recommended.

In this window you have no control over the data types of the various fields.

To open a table in “Datasheet view”, we select the table from the list of tables in the database and we click the “Open” button.

We see all the records present in our table in “Datasheet View” .

The record with the black arrow on the left is the record that is currently selected.

Navigating in Datasheet View

When we use the “Datasheet View”, we can navigate through the records by using the “Shift” key to navigate left and “Tab” key to navigate to the right.

We can also use the up, down, left and right arrow keys on our keyboard.

We can also navigate in larger “tables” by using the scroll bars up and down, left right.

Alternatively, we can use the buttons at the bottom to jump quickly from one record to another.

 

Add records in Datasheet View

Below the “table” field names , we find a row without data with just an asterisk (*) on the left side.
That is the “New Record” row.

To add a new record, just click in that row and start typing your information.
The asterisk symbol will change to a pencil image.

If we open a “table”, we will always see the first completed record.
If our “table” is quite large and we wish to add a new record, we don’t need to use the scrollbar at the bottom of the “table” but simply click the button .

This brings us to the very bottom of our “table” in a new record.

Edit and delete records in Datasheet View

To “Edit” (change) a record, we simply place our cursor in the appropriate field, select the text and start typing.
In order to save your change, it is enough to move the cursor out of the “cell”.

Changes to a “Table” are saved automatically.

You have to click the “Save” button only when you change the structure of the “table”.

To delete an entire record from our database, we click on the row selector (left) and then press the “Delete” button.

Access will ask if you are sure that this record is to be removed.

If you click “Yes”, then the record is permanently deleted.

Adding new fields

Once you’ve created the table, it could be that you want to change the structure of your table.

To do this, we need to open the “Table Design” window of the table:

To do this we click the “Design View” button
In the “Design View” window, we right click on the row selector of the field under the new field that we want to insert.

So the field is being added above the selected field.

A new blank field will be inserted above the row that you selected.

Give the new field a name and select the type of data you want to use for this field.

Since we have changed our structure of our table, we need to save now.

Click “File” and select ” Save” in the menu bar.

Rename fields

In Access, we have the flexibility to change the name of a field to a different name.
But I must caution you, if you change names of fields, this can affect your reports, forms or queries that have already been created.

Therefore, if you want to “rename” a field, you have to check if you have adjusted other objects automatically.

If not you can do it manually.

To give a field a different name, we have to open the table in “Design View”, then click in the column that you want to change the name for, type the new name and click the “Save” button to capture the changes of structure.

Remove fields

We can also remove fields.

But be sure that those fields are not used in other objects (“Macros”, “Reports”, “Forms”, etc.), otherwise the whole thing becomes a mess and it no longer works properly.

To remove a field we right click on the row selector and we choose “Delete row”.

Access will ask if you are sure, click “Yes” to permanently delete, click “No” if you still want to maintain the field.

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