Access is truncating the data in a couple Memo fields when I am appending an Excel file. The field in the Access table is already set as a Memo type. I believe the problem is that I do not have any entries in the first few rows of some of the memo fields. Access is assuming the data is a text field, even though I have already set it as a Memo type.
I have tried appending as a CSV. Did not work.
I have put dummy data in the first row that exceeds the 255 character limit and the data is not truncated if I do that.
I do not want to have to put dummy data in every time I have to import an Excel file. This is a process that will be completed at least biweekly, maybe more frequent. I would like to set up an easy way to import the data for future employees that work with the same database. Any ideas?
Update: Even with dummy data in the first couple of rows, Access is truncating the data for 3 out of the 10 Memo feilds when I import the Excel file (Character length of dummy data is 785). Now I am really at a loss for ideas.
It has been a while, but I was having the same issues as you.
After much digging, I found that the wonderful world of microsoft explains:
To avoid errors during importing, ensure that each source column
contains the same type of data in every row. Access scans the first
eight source rows to determine the data type of the fields in the
table. We highly recommend that you ensure that the first eight source
rows do not mix values of different data types in any of the columns.
Otherwise, Access might not assign the correct data type to the
column.
Apparently, this means when appending an excel file to an existing table, even when columns are formatted and saved as memo fields, that if all 8 of the first rows in the excel file are less than 256 chars, Access assumes you actually meant to specify text, thus truncating the remaining rows after 255 chars. I have performed several tests placing "dummy" rows within the top 8 rows, and each triggered the import of more than 255 chars.
Now, if you import to a new table, the wizard allows you to pick all of the formatting options.
Importing to a new table is convenient if you are okay with overwriting all of the data already in the table. However, if you truly need to append, I would suggest importing to a temporary table, then appending from there. An easy way to do this is to save a import then execute it from VBA, like Elliot_et_al wanted to do. You could then also run the append query in VBA as well. If you set up your tables correctly you may be able to get away with
INSERT INTO [MyTable]
SELECT [MyTable_temp].*
FROM [MyTable_temp];
For what it's worth....I ran into a similar problem with Access 2013 - it was truncating fields to 255 characters on import from XLS, even when the Import Wizard selected LONG TEXT as the field, and even when I had fields with > 255 characters in the first few rows.
A colleague suggested that I link the spreadsheet instead importing to a new table, the issue went away. I also created a new table based on the linked one, and all is good.
EDITED TO ADD: In Access 2013, if you've already imported the XLS file into Access and cannot go back to it to try to link first, try this instead:
Go to Design View of the table, go to Field Properties at the bottom of that screen and set the Long Text "Text Format" to "Rich Text". Just today, I found that this saved me from having to recreate a table that I'd imported from excel months ago and found that even though I had the "Notes" column set to Long Text, it was still truncating text that I was manually entering in to 255 characters regardless. Switching to Rich Text made this text visible.
I use excel to communicate with external partners and capture reports from them into an access database. I've found the best way to do this is to insert a "dummy" first row into the worksheet that contains greater than 255 characters in any given column where the user-populated data is likely to exceed 255 characters.
In this way when I import the data it always imports all the text, and then I can simply delete the "dummy" row from the database table.
I frequently use an "import template" workbook that I link to from my access database. I set the template page to be formatted as a table before linking (so that the import contains all data without having the specify the range each time), and make the first "dummy" row hidden in there.
In this way I can simply copy and paste the data into the import template and then run a database query to import (and if necessary, transform) the data into the database, with a second query to delete the "dummy" record afterwards.
Hope this helps..?
Excel and Access are quirky. Apparently, appending Excel or CSVs to the end of an existing Access table which has the same properties of Long Text is an issue. Appending data will default all Long Text to Short Text. The work around was to output the data to Excel, append the data into one table, then import it as a new table in Access. Access has a problem with treating appending data as Short Text instead of Long Text regardless what you do.
Do make sure that when using the import wizard to change the properties of the column to Long Text.
I hope this helps.
I faced the same issue in MS Access 2013. When I import an excel sheet with one of the column text greater than 255 characters, it was truncating. I did lot of research and finally I am able to find a workaround. Actually, Some how MS Access database determining the size of the text based on the first record column text length and fixing that length for the subsequent records. If it's length < 255, access automatically limiting further records length to 255 size or what ever is the first record column length. I ensured the first record to have max length of all the records text column (sorted) and then imported and it worked well for me.
I had same exact problem with Access 2010. I found two different workarounds after finding out Access look at first 25 records to determine type of data on each columns when importing.
Sorted importing records by length of column in descending order. This means records with larger than 255 characters in some column will be among first 25 records. Then, Access was able to import those records without truncating.
Created link table specifying column data type as memo and then appended to table.
I've had luck in the past with Rich Text solution offered above as well as using "dummy rows" as the first record imported. Thank you for those! However, today I think I've come across a more efficient/consistent solution for imports you'll repeat many times. I tried this in Access 2007.
Use the import wizard as if you're importing the data to a new table. Go through all the screens setting your specifications. Most important, check or specify the data type for each field in the tedious Field Options / Data Type area (for my recent text file, this was the 3rd screen of the Import Text Wizard)--be sure to specify your Memo fields here. (Don't worry, you'll only have to do this once!)
When you arrive at the final "That's all the info the wizard needs..." screen, look for the "Advanced..." button on the lower left. This brings up a screen summarizing everything you just did. Look for "Save as..." on the right. Save these specs with a helpful name. (You can confirm you saved your specs by clicking "Specs..." directly below.) Click "Okay" to leave the advanced screen.
You can now cancel out of the wizard if you don't actually need to create a new table. Next--and this is what you can do every time from now on to avoid truncations--go to the normal import wizard with "Append a copy of the records to the table..." In the wizard, you should see that same "Advanced..." button. Open it, click "Specs...", and double-click your saved specification. Say "OK" to exit "Advanced," and complete the wizard. This should tell Access to keep your memo fields as memo fields!
When importing CSVs to existing tables, I find I need to go through a couple of the normal wizard screens (e.g. specify the Text Qualifier) before going to the "Advanced" screen. Not sure why this makes it happy, just FYI.
I hope this helps someone else who has struggled with Field Truncation import errors like me!
In many case you just change text format of memo field from normal text to RTF, now if you open table data you can see all imported text
I know I can just convert to number in Excel, but I will be handing this database off to a few users with no Access experience and limited Excel experience--I want as little data manipulation as necessary. Access use has been reduced to button-clicking and report viewing/printing. Among these buttons is a data refresh macro--the fewer the steps in preparing the data, the lower the chance of screwing something up.
I'm adjusting a .mdb Access table to include information previously excluded from an Excel import. A few of these columns are numbers stored as text in Excel, while the columns in Access have datatype set to "Number". When I import, will Access treat these as a number or a string?
Thanks!
It does indeed appear to store these values as numbers--it sorts appropriately and I get a value for average.
Update: I just tried to import an Excel file (with numbers stored as text) into a new table, manually changed the data type for this field to Double during the import process, and Access did not import any of the numbers. I deleted all records, saved the table, imported again (this time into the already existing table) and it went through successfully.
Worth noting that you can import numbers stored as text to an existing table, but not into a new table.
I am trying to add about 350 rows of data from an Excel sheet into SQL Server 2008 using the Import and Export Wizard. I am running into a single issue that I cannot find a solution for. I have a column named Link with a text data type in my SQL table to hold URLs (since they can get pretty long sometimes). I have a corresponding Link column in my Excel sheet whose longest entry is exactly 100 characters. When I run the Import/Export Wizard, I receive a series of errors related to the truncation, the first of which states "Data conversion failed while converting column "Link" (60) to column "Link" (168)."
After extensive Google-ing, I have been unable to find a solution. The first suggestion everyone makes is to set the longest field as the first row in your Excel sheet, that way SQL will know how long to expect the field to get. I have done this, to no avail. Does anyone have any other suggestions?
I just don't understand how a SQL column with a data type of text (with a max length of just over a billion characters) would need to truncate a 100 character long cell.
I have found a fix for my problem. First, I let the Import Wizard create a new table from the Excel sheet to see which data type it picked for the Link column. It chose nvarchar(255), so I went into my SQL table and changed the data type from text to nvarchar(255). It imported everything on the first try with no problems. I am not sure why it would not input the data into a text column (I have several other text columns that worked just fine). It may have been something to do with the slashes, colons, ampersands, etc. that exist in a URL, but for whatever reason, it would not put the data into a text data type. Oh well. C'est la vie.
I am reworking and expanding a somewhat complex database schema that has a small number of tables and queries but they are closely related. The only problem I had with it was that in one of the tables the 2 fields that were relating to another table were using the field name of the record and not the ID of the record.
I changed the referring fields data type from text to number and entered some data. The queries and the reports work fine with 1 exception:
There is one report that uses both referring fields. One of the fields is ok but the other one shows symbols instead of numbers. ( The IDs in my sample entries were 14 and 20 and the symbols shown were a double barred music note /alt code 14/ and the symbol for an end of a paragraph /alt code 20/ ) Investigating further I have found that if I make a query that contains the query source for the report both fields display fine, but if I add another table to that query the second field once again shows symbols instead of numbers.
I have found a workaround of this by converting those fields back to text and the id fields in the other tables to text as well. This text key will probably haunt me later on, so I'd like to make it right before it is too late.
This is all access 2010 btw. The source file was already in 2010 (couldn't open in 2007 even)
Sounds like a corruption issue for sure. I would try adding a new column and run an update query to populate it with the values from the old column (maybe use cint(indexfield)), then delete the old column.
It might also be a good idea to decompile the database. This often helps resolve corruption issues.
I am currently experiencing difficulties when trying to append data to existing tables.
I have about 100 CSV files that I would like to create a single table from; all the tables have different column structures but this isn't really an issue as the associated field names are in the first row of each file.
First, I create a new table from one of the files indicating that my field names are in the first row. I change the particular fields that have more than 256 characters to memo fields and import the data.
I then add to the table the fields that are missing.
Now, when I try to append more data, I again select that my field names are in the first row, but now I receive a truncation error for data that is destined for the memo fields.
Why is this error occurring? Is there a workaround for this?
edit
Here is an update regarding what I've attempted to solve the problem:
Importing and appending tables will not work unless they have the exact same structure. Moreover, you cannot create a Master table with all fields and properties set, then append all tables to the master. You still receive truncation errors.
I took CodeSlave's advice and attempted to upload the table, set the fields that I needed to be Memo fields, and then append the table. This worked, but again, the memo fields are not necessarily in the same order in every data file, and I have 1200 data files to import into 24 tables. Importing the data table by table is just NOT an option for this many tables.
I expect what you are experiencing is a mismatch between the source file (CSV) and the destination table (MS Access).
MS Access will make some guesses about what the field types are in you CSV file when you are doing the import. However, it's not perfect. Maybe it's seeing a string as a memo or float as a real. It's impossible for me to know without seeing the data.
What I would normally do, is:
Import the second CSV into it's own (temporary) table
Clean up the second table
Then use an SQL query to append those records from the second table to the first table.
Delete the second table
(repeat for each CSV file you are loading).
If I knew ahead of time that every CSV file was already identical in structure, I'd be inclined to instead concatenate them all together into one, and only have to do the import/clean-up once.
Had a very similar problem - trying to import a CSV file with large text fields (>255 chars) into an existing table. Declared the fields as memo but were still being truncated.
Solution: start an import to link a table and then click on the Advanced button. Create a link specification which defines the relevant fields as memo fields and then save the link specification. Then cancel the import. Do another import this time the one you want which appends to an existing table. Click on the Advanced button again and select the link specification you just created. Click on finish and the data should be imported correctly without truncation.
I was having this problem, but noticed it always happened to only the first row. So by inserting a blank row in the csv it would import perfectly, then you need to remove the blank row in the Access table.
Cheers,
Grae Hunter
Note: I'm using Office 2010