How to Use an Input Mask to Control How Data Is Entered Into a Microsoft Access Field

Video Transcript

"Hi my name is Dave Andrews. Today I'm going to show you how to use an input mask to control how data is input into Microsoft Access fields. Lets open up Microsoft Access by going to start, all programs, Microsoft office, and choosing office Access. Lets open up a data base by clicking on the office button and selecting open. I'm just going to open up my database one here. Now I have a single table in this database, lets go to the design view on that table. And we are going to create a text field called telephone number. Telephone number and we are going to give it a data type of text. To create your input mask down here in the fields property area, click on the input mask area and click these three little dots. If it asks you if you have to save your table first just click yes. Now we are going to create a phone number input mask by just selecting the phone number premade mask that's already here. Just select next. Next, and we want to use the symbols in the mask. And just say finish. Now lets save our table and open it up for editing. Simply double click on the table. Now as you can see, when we type in our telephone numbers. It's going to require that they be entered like a normal telephone number would appear using that input mask. My name is Dave Andrews and I've just showed you how to control data entered into a Microsoft Access field using an input mask."