Value of field instead of ID

[giddyup43]

Hi.
I'm really struggling with this and I'm hoping someone could help me.
I have a couple of dependent combo boxes in my forms, and it's storing the data in the table as id's instead of values.
I need the values in the table, not the id. I will be exporting this table and sending it to a 3rd party and Id's wont help them.
How can I do that?

Here's an overview of the structure:
Main Table
Main Form
Lookup Parent Category Table
Lookup Child Category Table.

I have a lookup in the form that references the Lookup Parent Category Table, and another one for the Child Category Table. It's storing the data that I enter into the Main Table as Id's, not values.

Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[alansidman]

Instead of exporting the table, create a query, link the values in the table that are IDs to the tables used in the combo boxes. Bring in the values from the combo boxes (tables), and hide the ID values from the main table. Export your query.

Databases are more efficient when they are set up as you have them with your lookups in your form linked to lookup tables.

 

[giddyup43]

thank you for your help. I tried it and it worked for most records, however for records that do not have anything in that field, it doesn't pull up the record at all. How can I get the query to pull up all records?

 

[alansidman]

If there is no value for the record in that field, how can you expect Access to put something there. You can do an update query to add specific data to those empty fields.

 

[giddyup43]

I think I figured it out. I changed the join type to include all records from table a and only those records from table b...
Thanks so much for your help!