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Creating and Opening a Table
You will notice in Figure 3-5 that there are three ways to create a new table: (1) Create a
table in Design view; (2) Create a table using wizard (i.e., to select a prebuilt table that is
complete with generic field definitions); and (3) Create a table by entering data (entering
data into a spreadsheet view). Since Cherokee's tables have been designed as a result of
creating the REA diagram and we do not have any data for the tables yet, we should cre-
ate a table in design view.
1. To create a table, be sure you have selected the Tables tab in the Database window.
Click on the Design icon or click on Create table in Design view (Figure 3-5). ATable
window is displayed which contains three columns: Field Name, Data Type, and
Description as shown in Figure 3-6.

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Field Properties
General ILookup I

A field name can be up to 64 characters long, induding spaces.
Press Fl for help on field names.

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e;lgn VIeW. F6 = SWitch panes. Fl = Help. NUM
FIGURE 3-6

Field Names can be up to 64 characters and can include any combination of letters,
numbers, spaces, and special characters (except a period, an exclamation point, a back-
quote character, or brackets because they are reserved Microsoft Visual Basic operators).
In addition, obviously a Field Name caJinot contain leading spaces.
Although a Field Name can include 'spaces, spaces in names could produce naming
conflicts in Microsoft Visual Basic in some circumstances. Therefore, we will adopt a con-
vention ofomitting the spaces in our Field Names and simply capitalizing each new word
in the Field Name.
When you tab to the Data Type column, you will note a button to pull down a menu.
This button allows you to select the Data Type for the given Field Name. Take some time
to explore the various Data Types. The Description property is used to provide useful
information about the table or query and its fields.