. Note You can link a table only in a Microsoft Access database, not a Microsoft Access project.
When you open a linked table in Design view, it looks much like a regular Microsoft Access table. Although you can't change the way the linked table and its fields are defined in the external database, you can set the properties that control the way the fields appear in Microsoft Access. Changes that you make to properties for linked tables affect only how Microsoft Access handles and displays data from the linked table; no changes are made to the source table. Field properties that you can set for linked tables are listed in the following table.
| Property | Effect |
|---|---|
| Format | Controls how data is displayed in a field |
| DecimalPlaces | Controls the number of decimal places displayed |
| InputMask | Used to create a data input mask with separator characters and blanks to fill in |
| Caption | Changes the name used for a field's datasheet column heading, and specifies a default name to be used as a label when adding a field to a form |
For information on setting field properties, click .
You can't change other field properties for linked tables. However, to help make data entry more efficient and reliable, you can create forms that you use to add or edit data in your linked tables, and set properties for controls that are bound to fields from your linked tables. For example, you might want to set the DefaultValue, ValidationRule, andValidationText properties for controls in those forms.
Note If you link tables from another Microsoft Access database, the tables use the property settings from the database they are stored in. For example, if a table has validation rules in the original database, data that you enter in the linked table must follow these rules as well. If you need to change these properties, you must open the table in the database it is stored in.
You might want to rename linked tables. Because Microsoft Access table names can contain spaces and up to 64 characters , you might want to give a linked table a more descriptive name after you link it. For example, if you link a dBASE table named SLSDATA, you could rename the linked table "Sales Data 1995 (from dBASE)." Note that this won't rename the table itself, just the name Microsoft Access uses to refer to the link to that table.
Rename a linked table using the same procedure as renaming other database objects. For more information, click .