MS Access provides the following data types:


Text data type is used to store alphabetic, numbers and special characters. It can store up to 255 characters. If length of text field is not specified, the default setting is 50 characters.


Memo data type is used to store lengthy text. It is normally used to store comments etc. memo fields can hold up to 64,000 characters.


Number data type is used to store numeric data. The fields with Number data type can be used in mathematical calculation. Different types of numeric data types are as follows: Nuymber Data Type Table

The Byte, Integer and Long Integer data types cannot store decimal values. If you need to store values with up to four decimal places only, use the Currency data type in preference to Single or Double number fields.

Data/ Time

Date/ Time data type is used to store date and time. MS Access stores date in the standard mm/dd/yy format.


Currency data type is used to store numbers representing currency. The value in Currency field is rounded to two decimal places. The negative currency values are displayed in brachests. The values automatically include a dollar sing ($).


AutoNumber data type is used to generate the next number automatically when a new record is added. It creates a unique number for each record. The value starts from 1 and is incremented by 1 in each record.


Yes/No data type is used to store Boolean value. The possible values in this field are True/False of Yes/No.

OLE Object

OLE stands for Object Linking and embedding. This data type is used to enter objects from other applications such as a spreadsheet created in Excel or a picture file.

Hyper Link

The hyper link data type is used to store links to other files, documents or web pages in a field. A hyperlink address has up to four parts.

  • The text that appear in the field
  • The path to a file or URL
  • A sub-address that is a location in the file or page in the website
  • The text that appears as the tool tip

Each part is separated by pound sign (#). The syntax of using hyperlink is as follows:

DisplayText # Address # SubAddress # Screen Tip

An example of using hyperlink is as follows:

Google Home Page#

#C:\My Documents\ Database.mdb#MyTabble