Hello all,
I'm a newcomer to Access, so please go easy on me I'm learning on the job, as my primary responsibilities fall outside of Access.
My predecessor at my place of employment left some very involved instructions for how to carry out a certain email update processes for my employer's database, and I'm about half-way through completing them...but I'm getting hung up on one step that requires me to copy information from a query into a table.
After creating and running a certain query, results come up in columns under a new tab called Query1. I'm not sure if this is considered a query, or query results displayed in a table, but as far as I can tell it's a query (please correct me if I'm wrong). Now the instructions tell me that since this query isn't editable, I'll have to copy the info from this query into a table in Access. I'm instructed to highlight all columns, click copy, go to the Create tab, select table, and paste all rows into the new table once it opens. So I create a new table via the Create tab, and it's called Table1. The first column automatically populates the header with "ID", and the second column with "Click to Add". The first cell under "ID" is filled with "(New)".
And here's where the trouble starts. After selecting all the columns (I've tried a number of different methods, including selecting from the top left corner, using shift+click on columns, and using shift+click on cells beneath the column headings) and copying them, I'm unable to paste them into the new table I've creating. When I select either of the cells in the top left corner, the "Paste" option in the toolbar is grayed out except for "Paste Append". When I select "Paste Append," an error message comes up saying:
"The name you supplied is a reserved word. Reserved words have a specific meaning to Microsoft Access or to the Microsoft Access database engine. If you use a reserved word, you may receive an error when referring to this field."
I click OK, and this message comes up:
"The field name you entered does not follow Microsoft Access object-naming rules. If you pasted the name from another application, try pressing ESC and typing the name again. For information about naming objects, click Help."
The second message, but not the first, also comes up when I try pasting by right clicking and hitting "Paste as Fields" from the drop-down. I've learned from clicking "Help" that apparently fields can only contain up to 64 characters, and that periods (along with several other special characters) are not allowed. Some of the columns I'm trying to paste definitely contain periods (since one column contains email addresses) and/or more than 64 characters (since one column contains service descriptions which are multiple sentences long).
Edit: Some of the cells contain more than 64 characters; none of the fields do. So I can see why this would be a problem.
But somehow my predecessor used this process for years, successfully copying and pasting this info from a query to a table, which makes me think I have to be missing something. Until now I've had no problem adding this data to Access; the trouble only arises once I try to copy and paste from query to table. So do the "no periods" and "no more than 64 characters" rules only apply when pasting data?
I'm pretty confused. My predecessor's instructions have been excellent so far, until this point...I just don't see how my she managed to do what she's describing. So I'm hoping one of you Access gurus can pinpoint what this rookie is missing and give me a heads up!
Thanks for your help!