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As you may know, in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, you can choose the Insert, Hyperlink command to insert a hyperlink into a document. You can’t do this in Access, however. Instead, to work with hyperlinks in Access tables, you have to create a special field. Specifically, you have to create a field that uses the Hyperlink data type. For example, in the sample Northwind database, the Suppliers table, shown in Design view in Figure 14.10, has a HomePage field that uses the Hyperlink data type.

Figure 1 To add hyperlinks to an Access table, you need to create a field that uses the Hyperlink data type.

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You can also insert a Hyperlink field using the Datasheet view. Choose Datasheet, New Field to dis­play the Field Templates pane and then double-click the Hyperlink field type (it’s in the Basic Fields group).Access adds a new field named Hyperlink.To change the name of this field,right-click the field header, click Rename Column, type the new name, and then press Enter.

After you’ve added the Hyperlink field, switch to Datasheet view. You have two options for inserting a hyperlink into a cell:

• Select the cell and then type the URL, path, or network path for the document to which you want to link.
• Right-click the cell and then choose Hyperlink, Edit Hyperlink to use the Insert Hyperlink dialog box to specify the link.

After the link is in place, click the cell to jump to the specified Web site or document. Figure 14.11 shows the Suppliers table with a few hyperlinks added.

When working with Access hyperlinks, bear in mind that some of the normal Access edit­ing methods don’t apply. For example, you might normally edit a cell by first clicking it to get the insertion point cursor and then making changes. With a Hyperlink field, however, you can’t get the cursor by clicking (because that just activates the link). Instead, you need to use the keyboard to select the cell and then press F2.

Also you need to be careful when you are editing a hyperlink. In general, Access hyperlinks take the following form:

friendly_name#link_location#

For example, suppose you enter the following into a cell:

Click here to load the memo#\\SERVER\public\memo.docx#

Access displays only Click here to load the memo in the cell.

Access ignores anything you enter after the last pound sign. So if you append something to the address, make sure you do it within the pound signs. Note, however, that anything before the first pound sign is used as link text. So instead of displaying, for instance, a URL, you can enter a description or name.

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