eCriteria: Publishing Access Data on the Web

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How to Publish Access Data on the Web

In order to take data from a table or query in a Microsoft Access database and produce the equivalent plain text file for uploading to eCriteria, you must go through the following steps. The goal is to have Access prepare a file on your hard disk of type "Text Document", i.e. having a file name extension of .txt. Once you’ve done this once, it’s a simple process to repeat, taking only a few minutes.

Step 1	Make sure you have installed the necessary Access components that allow you to export to text format. You can tell if this is the case by first opening the table or query in datasheet view, and then opening the File menu, and selecting Export. From here, pull-down the "Save as Type" list found at the bottom of the Export dialog box. If your installation of Access allows exporting to text, you should see the item "Text Files" in the list. If not, you must go back to your Microsoft Access (of Office) CD and re-run the Setup program to select this feature. Fortunately, Microsoft does automatically install text features in a "Typical" install.
Step 2	With the "Text Files" item selected in the "Save as Type" pull-down above, type in the name of your text output file. Since this is a temporary file that you can delete after uploading to eCriteria, the name of this file is not important. Click on the "Save All" button in the dialog box.
Step 3	You should now see the first window of the "Export Text Wizard" that is part of Microsoft Access. This wizard steps you through the creation of the text file. Click on the "Delimited" option button at the top of the dialog box. This will prepare the file in the format required by eCriteria. Click on the "Next" button.
Step 4	On the next window of the wizard, select "Comma" in the section of the window labeled "Choose the delimiters that separates your fields." You should also check the item labeled "Include Field Names on First Row." This last step is important because eCriteria requires the first row of all uploaded databases to contain the field names of the database. Click on the "Next" button.
Step 5	On the last window of the wizard, you should see the name of the text file that will be created. Note the file should have a ".txt" file name extension. You must remember the name and directory location of this file because you’ll need to point to it during the eCriteria upload process. Click on the "Finish" button.
Step 6	For good measure, you might open the new text file using the Windows Notepad or Wordpad utility available in your Accessories program group. The resulting file should resemble the following sample file's structure: "Make","Model", "FromYear","ToYear","Description" "CV","ASTRO","85","87","" "BM","535I","86","87","" "FD","PICK UP","85","97"," FORD PICK UP(F-SERIES) 4.9AOD UNIFIT" "FD","PICK UP","85","97"," FORD PICK UP(F-SERIES) 4.9AOD UNIFIT" "BK","CENTURY","82","85","(N.L.A) USE AR-953" "DG","VAN","70","78","*SEE 0889" "BM","325","84","87","SUPERSEDED TO 7802 84-87 BMW 325/325E" "VW","FOX","87","89","SUPERSEDED BY 7610---88-89 VW FOX" "DG","CHAMP","83","84","SUPERSEDED7759 *PLYMOUTH CHAMP"

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