Microsoft Access Technical Limitations and Notes

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Access Technical Limitations and Notes

Microsoft Access Table

Attribute
Maximum
Number of characters in a table name
64
Number of characters in a field name
64
Number of fields in a table
255
Number of open tables
2048; the actual number may be less because of tables opened internally by Microsoft Access
Table size
  • 2 gigabyte minus the space needed for the system objects - Acc 2003
  • 2 gigabytes - Acc XP
  • 1 gigabytes - Acc 2000
Number of characters in a Memo field
65,535 when entering data through the user interface;
1 gigabyte of character storage when entering data programmatically
Size of an OLE Object field
1 gigabyte
Number of indexes in a table
32
Number of fields in an index
10
Number of characters in a validation message
255
Number of characters in a validation rule
2048
Number of characters in a table or field description
255
Number of characters in a record (excluding Memo and OLE Object fields) when the property of the fields is set to yes
  • 4000 - Acc 2003
  • 2000 - Acc XP
Number of characters in a field property setting
255

Microsoft Access Query

Attribute
Maximum
Number of enforced relationships
32 per table minus the number of indexes that are on the table for fields or combinations of fields that are not involved in relationships
Number of tables in a query
32
Number of fields in a recordset
255
Recordset size
1 gigabyte
Sort limit
255 characters in one or more fields
Number of levels of nested queries
50
Number of characters in a cell in the query design grid
1024
Number of characters for a parameter in a parameter query
255
Number of ANDs in a WHERE or HAVING clause
99
Number of characters in an SQL statement
Approximately 64,000

Microsoft Access Forms and Reports

Attribute
Maximum
Number of characters in a label
2048
Number of characters in a text box
65,535
Form or report width
22 in. (55.87 cm)
Section height
22 in. (55.87 cm)
Height of all sections plus section headers (in Design View)
200 in. (508 cm)
Number of levels of nested forms or reports
  • 7 - Acc 2003
  • 7 - Acc XP
  • 3 - Acc 2000
Number of fields or expressions you can sort or group on in a report
10
Number of headers and footers in a report
1 report header/footer; 1 page header/footer; 10 group headers/footers
Number of printed pages in a report
65,536
Number of controls and sections you can add over the lifetime of the form or report
754

Microsoft Access Macros

Attribute
Maximum
Number of actions in a macro (macro: An action or set of actions that you can use to automate tasks.)
999
Number of characters in a condition (condition: Part of the criteria that a field must meet for searching or filtering. Some conditions must be used with a value; for example, the field Author with the condition equals with the value Jane.)
255
Number of characters in a comment
255
Number of characters in an action argument (action argument: Additional information required by some macro actions. For example, the object affected by the action or special conditions under which the action is carried out.)
255

Database Size

Generally accepted limits are solutions with 1 GB or less of data (Access supports up to 2 GB).