Dear Alexiasis:
Is it the case that the word or phrase of interest could be an any
column of the table? That would seem to indicate that your table has
multiple columns, each of which has the same meaning. For example, to
search for Louis as the first name of a person is quite different from
searching for the name of a city which contains Louis. It would
probably not be logical to search both columns for Louis, because the
person doing the search would almost certainly know whether he wanted
a person named Louis or a city with Louis in its name.
In database design, it is a fundamental principle not to put two or
more columns in a table whose purpose is indistinguishable. Instead,
the multiple entries are placed in a separate table with a one-to-many
relationship. If this is the situation you have, and you have
multiple equivalent columns in your table, then you are going to have
a small problem.
You can certainly write the query to individually search each column:
WHERE Column1 LIKE "*Louis*" OR Column2 LIKE "*Louis*"
OR Column3 LIKE "*Louis*"
If this seems cumbersome, it it because the tools to work with
databases are founded in theory on the presumption that the designer
will follow the rules.
I have tried to give you the simple answer to your question, along
with some "food for thought" if it's appropriate.
Tom Ellison
Microsoft Access MVP
Ellison Enterprises - Your One Stop IT Experts
