How Do You Determine Which Primary Key Type To Use In Microsoft Access?
By using a primary key to uniquely identify each record stored in each table, you can instruct Microsoft Access to find and group together information stored in various tables. There are three types of primary keys: AutoNumber, single-field and multiple-field. These instructions are for Access 97. Use an AutoNumber primary key when you want the simplest and fastest way to set a primary key, or when you believe there may be duplicate fields. By designating an AutoNumber field, each record will automatically be assigned a unique, sequential number. Use a single-field primary key if your table has a field that contains a unique identifier. This could be an ID number, a product number, a telephone number and so on. Run a Find Duplicates query to be sure there are no duplicate records. Use a multiple-field primary key when working with tables in a many-to-many relationship, and in cases where you cannot be sure of the uniqueness of the data in any given field. By assigning two fields as the
