PASTE MAKES WASTE

Do you support users who paste data directly into Access tables? If so, you probably often get calls from users who receive a message that Access is adding data to the Paste Errors table when they're trying to paste. When that happens, you can usually explain and resolve the problem pretty quickly by considering all the usual suspects.

When you hear, "Some of the fields are missing," chances are good that the user tried to paste more fields than the datasheet contains and Access ignored them. Users who are in a hurry will try to paste without selecting destination fields or try to paste into the wrong destinations.

Dirty data is a frequent cause of paste errors. If the data layout of the Access table has changed (and no one told the user), or if the layout of the foreign file changed (and no one updated the Access table), then values may get kicked out if they're not compatible with the data type for the field in which they attempted to land.

Access may also reject records for dozens of other reasons, such as violating validation rules. For users who frequently paste data from other sources into their datasheets, the best advice may be: Make a clean backup copy of your table before you paste, just in case.

Created Date: 03/13/2002  Last Reviewed: 03/13/2002  Rev. Date: