Using the Export Wizard, you can export data from an Access database to in a file format that can be read by Excel. This article shows you how to prepare and export your data to Excel, and also gives you some troubleshooting tips for common problems that might occur.
In this article
- Exporting data to Excel: the basics
- Prepare for the export operation
- Run the export operation
- What else should I know about exporting?
- Troubleshoot missing and incorrect values
Exporting data to Excel: the basics
When you export data to Excel, Access creates a copy of the selected data, and then stores the copied data in a file that can be opened in Excel. If you copy data from Access to Excel frequently, you can save the details of an export operation for future use, and even schedule the export operation to run automatically at set intervals.
Common scenarios for exporting data to Excel
- Your department or workgroup uses both Access and Excel to work with data. You store the data in Access databases, but you use Excel to analyze the data and to distribute the results of your analysis. Your team currently exports data to Excel as and when they have to, but you want to make this process more efficient.
- You are a long-time user of Access, but your manager prefers to work with data in Excel. At regular intervals, you do the work of copying the data into Excel, but you want to automate this process to save yourself time.
About exporting data to Excel
- Access does not include a “Save As” command for the Excel format. To copy data to Excel, you must use the Export feature described in this article, or you can copy Access data to the clipboard and then paste it into an Excel spreadsheet.
- You can export a table, query, form, or report. You can also export selected records in a multiple-record view, such as a datasheet.
- Microsoft Excel includes a command to import data from an Access database. You can use that command instead of the export command in Access; however, the Excel import command only allows you to import tables or queries. For more information, see the Excel Help article Connect to (import) external data.
- You cannot export macros or modules to Excel. When you export a form, report, or datasheet that contains subforms, subreports, or subdatasheets, only the main form, report, or datasheet is exported. You must repeat the export operation for each subform, subreport, and subdatasheet that you want to export to Excel.
- You can only export one database object in a single export operation. However, you can merge multiple worksheets in Excel after you complete the individual export operations.
Prepare for the export operation
Before performing an export procedure, it is a good idea to review the data that you want to export to make sure that it does not contain any error indicators or error values. If there are any errors, try to resolve them before you export the data to Excel. Otherwise, problems can occur during the export operation, and null values might be inserted into cells in the Excel worksheet. For more information about problems that can occur when exporting to Excel, see the section Troubleshoot missing and incorrect values.
If the source object is a table or a query, decide whether you want to export the data with or without its formatting. This decision affects two aspects of the resulting workbook — the amount of data that is exported and the display format of the data. The following table describes the outcome of exporting formatted and unformatted data.
Source Object
Fields and records
