About finding or replacing data
There are many ways that Microsoft Access can find or replace just the data you need, whether you're looking for a particular value, one record, or a group of records.
- You can find a record by scrolling in a datasheet or form, or by typing its record number in the record number box.
- With the Find dialog box, you can locate specific records or find certain values within fields. You can navigate through records as Access finds each occurrence of the item you're looking for. If you want to replace certain values that you find, use the Replace dialog box instead.
- With a filter, you can temporarily isolate and view a specific set of records to work with while you have a form or datasheet displayed.
- With a query, you can work with a specific set of records that meet criteria you specify from one or more tables in the database. You can work with this subset independent from a specific form or datasheet by running the query.
- In a Microsoft Access database, you can replace large amounts of data more quickly or perform calculations on data (such as raising all salaries in an Employee table by 5 percent) by using an update query instead of the Replace dialog box. In a Microsoft Access project, you can use a stored procedure to update large amounts of data. However, you can't confirm individual replacements when using an update query or a stored procedure. Also, an update query or stored procedure isn't as convenient when you want to search for and replace data in more than one field.
Note When you attempt to find or replace data in an Access project, Access performs the operation only on the data that is stored on the client. If your datasheet or form has reached its maximum record limit, there may be more data on the server. To ensure that you are finding or replacing all the data, you might want to specify that there is no limit on the maximum number of records.