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Access Linked Table Error

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by maine kebo

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While I was opening a linked excel table in Access, I keep getting an error saying "External table isn't the expected format" and I couldn't see the linked table. Only when I open the source table at the same time, am I able to view the linked tablewithout this error message.

I checked the data format of the linked table in Access and found some type conversion errors such as "!#NUM". I fixed them in the source table and linked the table again but I still get the same error message.

Whywould this happen?
Thanks for your help in advance!

3 replies

by mslizny

It is probable that something about the external Excel file has changed since you linked the Access table to it. When such a change occurs, the Access utility that checks the information in the Excel file to make sure the Access table has the most up-to-date data finds a problem.

Access has a "Linked Table Manager" utility in the Database Utilities under the "Tools" menu (if you have a complete installation of all wizards and helpers in Access). Go to this utility and update the link to the Excel file. This should solve your problem.

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