Microsoft Access Tutorial: Execute INSERT Statement Using Access Wizard

Once you have a Microsoft Access database and a table in that database, then the act of adding data (rows) to the table is a matter of using the INSERT command in Access. With the GUI interface of the program, to do an INSERT Access statement, you don't have to write any SQL. You can simply type in your data into the datasheet view of the table. This tutorial will show you how to add data using the datasheet view.

If you don't already have a Microsoft Access database with a table in it, then refer to a previous tutorial I have written that shows how to do this. In this tutorial I will be using the database from a previous tutorial called "MyFirstAccessDB" and a table within it called "People" to do the INSERT Access commands.

1. Open the Database and Table

In this tutorial, it would be the MyFirstAccessDB, and the table called People.

2. Add Row of Data

To perform an INSERT Access command, you just have to add data to the last blank row that is shown in the datasheet that represents the table. If you do not see the datasheet view of the table, click on View -> Datasheet View. For my table, there are 3 rows with data, and the 4th row is blank. In the 4th row, I will add some data. For each field (FirstName, LastName, Age, State), I have entered a sample entry (row).

Also note that there is a menu item called Insert which you can use to insert a new record (row) or a new column to the table.

3. Save Changes

To execute the built-in INSERT Access command, simply Save the table by clicking on the Save icon or on File -> Save.

Now if you were to re-open the table, you will see that additional row of data you just inserted (along with another blank row for more data you can add). You can keep repeating this process for every record you want to add to add to the table using this INSERT Access built-in functionality.

There is a SQL command called INSERT which gets executed in the background by Microsoft Access to add that additional row of data to the table which you don't see. I will be showing you how to use the INSERT command in SQL in a different tutorial because that is a whole another topic.