Access Data Base - copying one cell to multiple cells in a selected column

Question

Access Data Base - copying one cell to multiple cells in a selected column

Todd Higgins 0

Access Data Base

If I want to copy data or a cell with data in it, I would ctrl + c to copy it.

I then want to copy that into a column of selected cells that has an existing different value so I can quickly fill those cells all the same.

Example. I want to copy .01 into column of cells that have .98, .01, .05, .04, etc. so that they are all .01, .01, .01, .01, etc.

How do I do that? I can only copy .01 into each individual cell in that column, and then have to keep repeating that process. In excel you can do that. Why can't I do that in Access?

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2 answers

Your answer

Answer 1

Ken Sheridan 3,581

If you want to restrict the update to those rows where the Item_PO# is one from a specified list of values you can use the IN operator in the WHERE clause like this:

UPDATE YourTableNameGoesHere
SET Item_PO# = 0.01
WHERE Item_PO# IN(0.98, 0.05, 0.04);

Just extend the value list to include whatever values you want to be updated. It would be pointless to include 0.01 in the value list of course, as rows with that value do not need to be updated.

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Answer 2

Access is a database and copy/paste operations seldom make sense in a database in contexts like this.

There are ways to update values for multiple records at a time, but copy/paste is a blunt force instrument not well suited to the goal. In this case, it appears that you do want to update everything in the Item_PO# field, but that's the exception.

Instead, you use Update Queries that selectively apply the changes to only those records you need to update.

In this case, it sounds like you want to update every record in the recordset to the same default value. That can be done like this:

UPDATE YourTableNameGoesHere
SET Item_PO# = .01;

A more common requirement is to selectively modify values in some records, but not others. In such cases, the Update queries might look like this:

UPDATE YourTableNameGoesHere
SET Item_PO# = .01
WHERE District = "K";