Share via

XML Data Import in Access

  • Article

This content is no longer actively maintained. It is provided as is, for anyone who may still be using these technologies, with no warranties or claims of accuracy with regard to the most recent product version or service release.

Microsoft® Access now provides you with the ability to import information from an XML document into one of the standard Access data engines: Microsoft® Jet or Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2000 Desktop Engine.

You can import an XML file that contains only data (bulk load), metadata (structure only), both data and metadata (structure and data load) or one that has been transformed using Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformation (XSLT) during the import process.

Access provides choices for using data from many external sources. XML makes it easier to transform the data from almost any external application for use by Access. You can:

  • Import XML data to a Jet, SQL Server, or SQL Server Desktop Engine
  • Import XML schema data to a Jet, SQL Server, or SQL Server Desktop Engine
  • Use an XSLT file to transform the data into an Access data format

As with importing other data into Access, the File | Get External Data | Import option is used to import XML data files into Access. This option brings up the Import dialog box where an XML document can be selected, as well as a schema that describes the structure of the data. Only a single document can be selected for import into Access. To support the import of XML, the data must be in a format that Access recognizes either in a native format or by using a schema.

**Note   **When importing XML data, you cannot choose a subset of the XML document; the entire file has to be imported.

By choosing Options from the Import XML dialog box, you can select a specific Access format in which to transform the native XML data. In addition, you can specify whether to overwrite any existing tables with the same name and overwrite or append them to existing data.

See Also

Working with XML | Office Applications and XML | XML Data Export | XSL: Technology Backgrounder | Access Forms and Reports Conversion | Working with XML in the Design Environment | Developing Office Developer Applications