Access Version: All

One of the problems with MS Access is that it allows you to do a lot of things that you really should not do, for example adding formats to tables. Here is why adding formats to tables is a bad idea.

1. Create a table

This table has an ID and a Date duplicated to provide 4 fields, 2 of which have formats applied, as you can see below.

2. Add three records

As you can see, the data added to the plain field and the formated field is exactly the same.

3. View the table

Well, this looks fine.

4. Experience problems

You cannot run a query to get WF-2, it does not exist, the field contains 2, but the format means that anyone viewing the table will be confused about this.

This query looks like it should work, but it will not, the field does not contain Date(), that is, 2013/03/13, it contains date and time. This is particularly confusing to the user, and will not help at all if you want to get rid of the time part.

5. Just to be sure

You can run code to see what the fields contain, and add more confusion when it does not match the view of the table.

6. Which is why

Adding formats to tables just disguises content and should be avoided. Adding formats to forms is a completely different story, and quite acceptable.