i have one big table that i want to link with several smaller tabl

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G

Guest

is it possible to have the information that i enter in the big table to
automatically go to the smaller tables or am i trying to make it too easy?
 
To "go to the smaller tables"?

What do you mena? You can "relate" the tables. For example...

Table1
EmployeeNumber
EmployeeFirstName
EmployeeLastName


Table2
EmployeeNumber
Address1
Address2
City
State
Zip
Phone

These two tables could be linked by EmployeeNumber. You would not (as your
post suggests) store the first and last name in BOTH tables. That would be
redundant.

I am concerned by your description "big table". A table in most cases
should only have twenty or thirty fields.

Give us more details if you wnat a more spcific answer to your question.

Rick B
 
Tammy,

It's impossible to answer your situation without some additional detail.
What is your big and small tables? Generally speaking, however, you want
data that you enter to go into a single table, or into several related tables
as defined by a query. You generally should NOT store data redundantly.

For example, a table Customers might store the customer name, address,
phone, etc. An Orders table might store an Order Number, the date, the sales
rep, etc. The two tables are related by ONE common field, the CustomerID.
This field, which is the Primary Key in the Customers table, is called a
Foreign Key in the Orders table. It is the ONLY Customers field that should
be stored in Orders--the name and any other fields one needs to either
display or print on a report are gotten by creating a query containing the
two tables, linked by the common field. When linked, the query behaves just
like a table that had ALL of the fields of each.

This is a frequent misunderstanding of new users (I know, cause I was one
myself!) of the difference between what is *stored* and what is *displayed*
on a form, or *printed* in a report. Generally, data input occurs on a form
that might have more than one table source, or might have a main form with an
emdedded detail subform, such as a Customers form, with a continuous subform
showing all of those customers orders.

I hope that gives you some useful information. Please post additional
detail on your table(s)' structure(s), and we can answer your specific
situation.

Sprinks
 
is it possible to have the information that i enter in the big table to
automatically go to the smaller tables or am i trying to make it too easy?
Click to expand...

You're trying to make it MUCH HARDER than it should be.

Links don't work the way you describe. Information should be stored
*ONLY ONCE*, not duplicated redundantly into multiple tables. Without
knowing anything about these tables, I'm only guessing - but I suspect
that your "big table" should not exist at all. If you need to see the
data from the various small tables in conjunction, you should consider
storing the data in the little tables (using Forms and Subforms, not
table datasheets), and create a Query to pull it all together.

John W. Vinson[MVP]
 
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