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Database Table Data Types:

The newest version of Microsoft Access marks the introduction of a new data types for your fields when creating tables. In addition to these new formats there are also changes to the previous formats that were available in earlier versions of Microsoft Access.

Data Types

Microsoft Access 2007 Data Types

Data Type	Description
AutoNumber	An AutoNumber field creates unique values automatically when Access creates a new record. The AutoNumber field is primarily used for Primary Keys in Access.
Text	A Text field can contain values that are text, numeric or a combination of both. A text field can contain a maximum length of 255 characters.
Memo	A much larger version of the text field, allowing storage of up to 2 GB of data. A new feature of the Microsoft Access Memo field is that it now supports rich text formatting.
Number	The Number field can store numeric values up to 16 bytes of data.
Date/Time	The Date/Time field allows storage of date and time information. The date/time field now also includes the Auto Calendar feature.
Currency	The Currency data type stores values in a monetary format. This can be used with financial data as 8-byte numbers with precision to four decimal places.
Yes/No	Boolean data storage of true/false values.
OLE Object	The OLE Object field stores images, documents, graphs etc. from Office and Windows based programs. The maximum data size is 2 GB, although this will slow down a database.
Hyperlink	The Hyperlink field type is used to store web addresses. This has a maximum size limit of 1 GB of data.
Attachment	The Attachment field type is used to store images, spreadsheet files, documents, charts and other types of supported files to the records in your database. This is a new feature that has been introduced with Microsoft Access 2007.

Rich Text Memo Field

With the introduction of the rich text memo field, Microsoft Access now allows better formatting of data in tables, forms and reports. In datasheet view, you can now apply formatting such as bold, italics and bulleted lists to a rich text enabled memo field.

To enable the rich text feature, you will need to specify this in table design view, under the field properties for the selected memo field. Here you can set the Text Format property to Rich Text. This field format is compatible with the rich text data type in Windows SharePoint services.

Displaying the Memo field, with the Rich Text formatting property applied.

Below, we can see an example of the results of using Rich Text formatting within the table. You can see that the data now displays bold and italics in this screenshot:

Auto Calendar

This new feature of Microsoft Access 2007, the Auto Calendar, displays an icon that pops up when you click into the field containing the date/time data that you are entering. When you click on the auto calendar icon, a calendar is displayed, allowing you to choose your data.

Showing the Auto Calendar, when entering data into a date/time data type field.

To enable the auto calendar feature, you will need to specify this in the field properties for the date/time field in table design view. You can show or hide the Date Picker, by setting the property to For Dates or Never.

Setting the Show Date Picker property, to display the Auto Calendar.