Adding an Attachment

In addition to storing data, we can add other documents, such as photos, PDFs, or Word documents, to a record in Access. For our database, we've been provided with some faculty photos. We'd like to add them to the faculty table. The first thing we need to do is add a new field to the table.

Adding a New Field

There is a field that will let us add attachments to an Access database, called an attachmentfield. We don't currently have an attachment field in our table, so we'll add a new field now.

Step1. To navigate to the last field heading in our table,

scroll to the right until the empty column after Bio is visible

You should see:

Step2. To start adding a new field, at the first empty column,

Click

A drop-down menu appears with the various types of fields that we could add. The following table describes the various data types available:

For our photos, we want to choose the Attachment data type.

Step3. To add an Attachment field,

Click Attachment

We see this icon in the new field: . This lets us know how many attachments, if any, have been added to a particular record.

Before we begin adding attachments, let's name our new field. Right now the name of the field is simply a paperclip, which isn't very helpful.

Step4. Click the Table Fields tab on the Ribbon.

Step5. To add a name and caption for the field, in the Properties group,

Click

The Enter Field Properties dialog box opens:

Step6. To give the field a name, in the Name field,

Press & Drag Field1, type: Photo Tab key

Although we've named the field, if we do not add a caption, we will still see the paperclip icon in the field header. Let's add a caption now to properly label the column.

NOTE: Adding a caption to other fields, such as Last Name for LastName, can make forms and reports more friendly, but for reasons of time we won't take care of that today.

Step7. To give the field a caption, in the Caption field, type:

Photo

We could add a description as well, but since the caption is self-explanatory, we'll leave that field blank.

Step8. To confirm our changes,

Click

We are ready to start attaching photos, but we have a small problem. Because there are quite a few fields in our table, we might not be able to see the Photo field, which is the last one, while also looking at the faculty members' names.

There are a number of ways to fix this problem. What we'll do now is freeze a few fields at the beginning of this table to keep them visible no matter where else we navigate in the table.

Freezing Fields

Much like with an Excel spreadsheet, we can choose to keep certain fields visible even as we scroll through the data. We'd like to freeze the first three fields, which contain the EmployeeID, and the faculty members' last and first names.

Step1. To show the first three fields,

scroll all the way to the left

To select the first three fields, we need to select the first three columns.

Step2. To position the cursor properly,

Point to the EmployeeID header

The cursor should change to a down-pointing black arrow:

Step3. To select the first three fields, with the downward facing arrow,

Press & Drag across the first three column headers

You should see the following:

Step 4. To start freezing the selected columns,

Right-Click the FirstName field

Step5. To freeze the selected columns, in the drop-down menu,

Click

Now, as we scroll to the right in our table, the first three fields will stay on the screen.

Adding a Photo Attachment

Now that we have the first three fields set to remain displayed as we scroll to the right, we can return to our new attachment field and add a few photos to our records.

Step1. To return to the Photo field, in the record navigation bar,

scroll to the right until the Photo header is visible

We have a photo for Professor Joanne Benavidez, so let's choose the photo field for her record.

Step2. Navigate to the third record in the database.

Step3. To begin adding an attachment, in the Photo field,

Double-Click

The Attachments dialog box opens:

Step 4. To add a picture, in the Attachments dialog box,

Click

Step5. In the Choose File dialog box, navigate to the Access-The Basics folder, if necessary.

Step6. To navigate to the Images folder, in the Access-The Basics folder,

Double-Click Images

Step7. To choose the photo for Benavidez, in the Images folder,

Double-Click Benavidez.jpg

Step8. To dismiss the Attachments dialog box,

Click

Now we see that a file has been attached to Joan Benavidez's record:

NOTE: The photos will not display in datasheet view. However, we will be able to see those photos later in the workshop, when we work with Forms.

Let's follow those same steps to add four more photos to faculty records.

Step9. Follow steps 3-8 to add photos from the Images folder to the following records:

• Billy Black
• Brian Briones
• Isabel Cabán
• Alex Campos

Step10. To save the layout change (with the first three columns frozen), on the keyboard, press:

Control key + S

Step11. Close tblFaculty.

Now that we have the faculty table set, we can create a new table to keep track of information about the departments that the faculty work for.