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What is Access Links ?

For use with Microsoft Access, creates forms and reports linked to data in Excel. Requires Microsoft Access to be installed on your PC.

The Access Links add-in requires Access to be installed.

The add-in is supplied with Excel 97 and 2000, but Excel 2002 users can download it from the Microsoft’s Web site.

Installing the Add-in

When installed it will add three additional buttons to the (Tools) drop-down menu.

When you activate this add-in, it adds three commands to the Data menu.

MS Access Form - Uses the Access form wizard to create a form. You can then use the form to enter data into an Excel list.

MS Access Report - Uses the Access report wizard to create a report based on the data in an Excel list.

Convert to MS Access - Launches a wizard which converts an Excel list to an Access table.

After creating a form or report, the relevant wizard will place a button in the worksheet.

You can use this to recall the form or report.

For the third command, the wizard adds a message to the worksheet to remind you that a copy of the data now resides in an Access database.

Of the three commands, the reporting option is probably the most useful.

If you want to enter data via a form, Excel’s built-in Forms tool (on the Data menu) will be faster, although the Access version gives you more control over the layout.

For converting data, Access’s import feature works just as well.