Copying from Excel to Access -- copies numbers, drops text

[LxQ]

In one of the columns that I'm copying from Excel to Access I have both numerical values as well as text values. When I copy it into an Access table, the numerical values are copied into the table but the text values are dropped. The field in Access is set to "Short Text." The field is empty, nothing in it. If I go and update it, it will let me type in the text that was dropped. Any idea why it doesn't copy the text?

 

[stumac]

This is a known issue where access assumes that you are going to be pasting all numerical values when the first value is numerical... A couple of ways round it:

1. Ensure the first row includes text in the value
2. Use paste special, Paste as Text

 

[Joe4]

Copying or importing from Excel to Access can be troublesome, as Excel and Access try to communicate and "guess" what the format of each field is in, based on the first few records. The issue is that it sometimes guesses wrong, for the reason stumac mentioned.

What I usually prefer to do is export my Excel file to a CSV or pipe-delimited file. Then, when I import it into Access, the Import Wizard pops-up, and I can explicitly declare the data type for each field.