Hands-On Microsoft Access: A Practical Guide to Improving Your Access Skills

Before closing this chapter, I'd like to mention quickly the easy-to-use Find Duplicates Query Wizard.

Suppose you have a table of contact info for suppliers. You want to check whether you've entered any supplier records twice. The field for supplier names doesn't allow duplicatesthat is, its Indexed property is set to Yes (No Duplicates). But the field for street addresses allows duplicatesthat is, its Indexed property is set to No or Yes (Duplicates OK).

If you have duplicates in the street address, it's possible that you have entered two records for the same company, using variations of the company name. It's also entirely possible that you have two different suppliers at the same street address.

This is the kind of information the Find Duplicates Query Wizard helps you discover. It can be particularly useful when you've imported data from another source and want to verify that there are no duplicate records.

The Find Duplicates Query Wizard can be selected in the New Query dialog box. The instructions provided in the wizard are straightforward, and I don't think you will have any problems using it.