Access refuses to format number as number - formats as date instead

[oliviar]

Hi Guys,
No matter what I do with my linked table, access thinks its a date... and its a bloody number!
ARGH. its ruining all my union queries.

I have tried forcing text-to-columns in excel, making it a number, making it general, hell, even text.

How can I force access to realise its a number?!

 

[SydneyGeek]

What do the first few lines of the spreadsheet look like? Access will set the data type based on a best guess from those rows. If nothing is there, populate at least the first row with a dummy record.

Also, you will get better performance if you import the data rather than linking. External tables based on worksheets or text files are slow in Access. How often does the data change, and how many users are on the system?

Denis