2004

Access a Database from Within AutoCAD | 733
Column formatting and table sorts in the Data View window are not stored.
This information is discarded when you open a new table or close the current
table. If you want to create and save a formatted report, you must copy the
contents of the Data View window to the Clipboard and paste it into an
external program such as Microsoft Excel. You can then use the external pro-
gram to apply and save the desired formatting. For details about creating a
template, refer to the documentation of the external program that you are
using to format the data.
Database Views and External Queries
Some database management systems support views. Views provide additional
ways to display data from a table. For example, you can use a view to display
a subset of the overall table. You can also use views to define relationships
between tables and create a new table that contains combined records from
the original tables.
Database systems that do not support views can produce similar results with
queries. Refer to your database system documentation for information about
creating and working with views and queries.
AutoCAD displays views and external queries in the Data Sources node of the
dbConnect Manager. External queries are queries created and stored outside of
AutoCAD but within an external database system. Using AutoCAD, you can
work with external queries and views as you would work with any other
table. You can view or edit them in the Data View window, construct queries
based on them, and create links and labels based on their records.
To open a table for viewing or editing
1 From the dbConnect menu, do one of the following:
■ Choose View Data ➤ View External Table to open a table in Read-only
mode.
■ Choose View Data ➤ Edit External Table to open a table in Edit mode.
If required by the database that you are connecting to, AutoCAD prompts
you to enter a valid user name and password.
2 In the Select Data Object dialog box, navigate to and select the table you
want to open, and then choose OK.
Note Some database systems require that you obtain access privileges before
you can view or edit database tables. Refer to the documentation for your
database system, or check with your database administrator.