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Access Lesson 6Integrating Access

Microsoft Office 2010 Introductory

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Objectives

Import data from other programs into an Access database.

Export data from an Access database to other programs.

Prepare a form letter for merging with a data source.

Merge a form letter with a data source. Edit a data source to print specific form

letters.

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Vocabulary

comma-separated values (CSV)

data source delimited data delimiter

export form letter import main document merge field

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Importing and Exporting Data

When you save data in another file format, you export the data from the database. You can export data to many other formats.

When you import data, you copy it from another compatible file format into an existing or new table in the current database.

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Importing and Exporting Documents

When you export data, it is saved as an RTF file, which stands for Rich Text Format.

In a CSV file, commas separate the field values in each record in the data source. When data is formatted using comma separators, it is called delimited data and the comma is called a delimiter.

The primary key field stores unique values for each record in a table.

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Importing and Exporting Documents (continued)

Exported data in Word

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Importing and Exporting Workbooks

Data exported from a database table to an Excel workbook is saved in Excel format.

Each field is stored in a worksheet column and each record is stored in a worksheet row.

You can also import data stored in a workbook into a new or existing database table.

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Importing and Exporting Workbooks (continued)

Get External Data – Excel Spreadsheet dialog box

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Creating Form Letters

A form letter is a document that includes codes that insert information from a data source.

When you merge the data source with the form letter, one letter is created for each record in the data source. In this case, the form letter is also called the main document.

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Creating Form Letters (continued)

A form contains codes to tell Word where to insert the fields in records in the data source.

Inserted codes are called merge fields and appear enclosed in double angle brackets.

Options are available for sorting and filtering data and locating a specific recipient.

The default setting for a mail merge is to merge all the records in the data source.

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Creating Form Letters (continued)

Document with merge fields inserted

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Summary

In this lesson, you learned: You can import and export data from a database and

use it in other programs. When importing data, you can append records to an existing table or create a new table. When appending records to an existing table, the data source must have the same number of fields and contain the same type of data as the existing table.

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Summary (continued)

Delimited data contains commas or other separators to separate the fields in a data source. When the delimiter is a comma, the data is called comma-separated values (CSV). Access, Excel, and other programs can read and process CSV files.

A form letter is a document that includes codes that merge information from a data source. The data source might be information stored in a Word document, an Excel workbook, an Access database, or another file format. When you merge the data source with the form letter, one letter is merged for each record in the data source.

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Summary (continued)

A merge field tells Word where to insert data from the data source.

To merge certain records from a data source in a form letter, edit the recipient list by applying a filter or by selecting individual records.

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