Field Type

[ChuckL]

I'm running Access 97 and I am importing data from Excel.
I am encountering import errors as a result of access
reading the first row of the excel spreadsheet for field
type determination. Some of my fields begin with a number
(Row 1)but contain numbers and text in subsequent rows.
Basically, I am thinking I need to convert all fields to
text via the import process to retain all records.
I have tried formatting my spreadsheets as text - Access
still tries to convert my mixed fields to number. I have
also tried importing the spreadsheets to tables, deleting
the data, changing the data type to text, and importing
again to the same tables. This keeps all fields text, but
I am still losing records.
Is there anything I can do to solve this problem other
than entering text in the first row of the spreadsheets I
am importing so that Access assigns a text field type?
Thank you for your help. Greatly appreciated!

 

[Roger Carlson]

Importing from Excel is always problematic. It is so "helpful" that
sometimes you can't do what you want. One solution I've used is to create
a dummy row in the first row of the spreadsheet containing data that will
create the field types that I want, then delete that row from the table
after the import.

Kludgy but workable.