Datasheet View and Design View

Continuing our “Database” creation, there are two display options: the “Datasheet View” (1) and the “Design View” (2).

The “Datasheet View” is the default mode for our table. To toggle between the two, click the downward pointing arrow under “View” (A) in the “Ribbon”. Choose “Design View” in the menu that appears. If you want to switch from one mode to another, you must first save the table.

To add a field in “Datasheet View” click the downward pointing arrow beside the field title (1), choose a field type, such as “text”, in the list that appears and then type the title for this field (2) . We will talk more about these types of fields a little bit later. Now I am going to show you how to add fields in the “Datasheet View”.

To add a field in “Design View” type a field name (1), you click the downward pointing arrow (2) in the “Data Type”, choose a type from the list (3).

When the table is created close it by clicking the X icon (A)in the upper right corner of the table. “Access” will ask if you want to save it. Give it a name in the dialog, and click the “Yes” button.

This puts the saved table in the “Navigation Pane” under the object type (1), in this case, the type “Tables”.

To open this table again, double-click it in the “Navigation Pane”. This will open the table in “Datasheet View”. If you wish to open this in “Design View”, right-click (command click on a Mac) it in the “Navigation Pane” and choose “Design View” from the pop-up menu. Once a table is stored, you can always switch between the different views by pressing the “View” button in the “Ribbon”, and selecting the other mode.

Data Types

You may have noticed, each field that you add to your table has a field “type,” or rather a “Data Type”.
I will explain:

• The first is the “Text” type.
  We use this when we have alphanumeric data to add to this field. The maximum number of characters you can enter is 255.
• The second type is the “Memo”.
  We use this when we have alphanumeric data to add to this field but the maximum number of characters you can enter is 65,536.
• The third type is “Numeric”.
  We use this when we want to enter only numeric data to the field.
• The fourth is “Date / Time”.
  We use this, you guessed it, when we have a Date or a Time to enter in the field.
• The fifth is “Currency”.
  We use this when we want to work with currencies, with or without decimal places.
• The sixth is “AutoNumber”.
  This will automatically generate a number for the various records.
• The seventh is “Yes / No”.
  We use this when we want to provide a logical value.
  Yes / No, True / False or On / Off
• The eighth is “OLE Object”.
  We use this when we want to add image or sound in the field.
• The ninth is “Hyperlink”.
  This we use when we want to add a hyperlink in the field.
• The tenth is the “Attachment”.
  We use this type when we want to add an attachment to the field. For example, a “Word” document.
• The eleventh is “Calculated Field”.
  We use this when we want to perform calculations on the field contents.
• And the last is “Lookup Wizard”.
  With this we open a wizard where we generate a lookup field. This lookup field can extract information from another table or query, or you can enter this information manually.

This is only an overview of the different “Data types”. We will discuss them in more detail in the upcoming lessons.

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