How to add an attachment in an Access 2007 database

Access allows you to include attachments in your database tables. By leveraging Microsoft's Object linking and Embedding (OLE) technology, you can store photos, charts, documents, and other files in your Access database. Database attachments are a new feature of Access 2007, and the process is simple and time-consuming, and can be accomplished by following these steps:

1. First use Access 2007 to open an Access database.

2. In Design view, open the table that you want to add an attachment to.

3. Enter a name for the Attachment field in the blank row of the field Name column.

4. In the Data type Drop-down box, select attachment

5. Click the Save button in the upper-left corner of the screen to save changes to the table.

6. Go to Datasheet view to view the table contents.

7. Double-click the paper clip icon in the blank field where you want to add the attachment. Note that the numbers in parentheses next to this icon represent the number of files attached to this record.

8. In the "Attachment" dialog box that appears, click the Add button to add a new attachment.

9. In the Select File dialog box that appears, use the Search scopes list to navigate to the file that you want to attach to the record, and then click the Open button.

10. Click "OK" button to close the "Attachments" dialog box.

11. You will notice that the number of the paperclip icon in the record has also changed accordingly.

Tips:

1. Adding attachments to database objects mentioned in this article is available only in Access 2007, which is not supported in previous versions of Access.

2. The added file must be less than 250MB, and the total number of attachments you add can only reach 2GB.