Exporting Access Tables to Excel

It’s often necessary to convert data stored in an Access database to another form, such as an Excel workbook. You may wish to take advantage of some of Excel’s unique analytical capabilities or simply share data with someone unfamiliar with Access. Whatever the reason, the conversion process is fairly straightforward and quick. Let’s take a few moments to walk through the process, step-by-step. For consistency’s sake, we’ll continue to work with the Northwind sample database. If you can’t find it on your system, read the article How to Install the Northwind Sample Database before continuing with this tutorial. Once you’ve successfully installed it, follow the steps below to export the Customers table to an Excel workbook.

1. Open the Northwind database.
   
   
2. When the Northwind Switchboard appears, click the Display Database Window button to access the main database screen.
   
   
3. If you are not already in Table view, click the Tables option under the Objects menu on the left side of the Database window.
   
   
4. Double-click the Customers table in the Database window to open the table.
   
   
5. From the File menu, choose the Export option.
   
   
6. You should now see a dialog box titled “Export Table ‘Customers’ To…” You should now specify the export format by choosing Microsoft Excel 97-2002 from the “Save as type” menu.
   
   NOTE: When you browse this menu, take note of the various options in the “Save as type” menu. You may actually use this same process to export Access tables to a wide variety of forms, including other databases like Paradox and dBASE. Access provides a great deal of flexibility by allowing you to export data to any ODBC-compliant data source or a plain text file, if you so desire.
   
   
7. Specify an appropriate filename in the “File name” textbox.
   
   
8. Click the Export All button to complete the export process!
   

Once you’ve completed this process, you may wish to open the Excel spreadsheet to verify that the data was successfully exported. That’s all there is to it!