Access database question

Am not entirely sure what you're trying to do here. If you've created a form in Access and have a combo-box (drop-down) then it will always match on the start of the field when you start typing in it. It seems you need it to do this backwards, and there is no way to do this.

In datasheet view you can press CTRL-F and type: *02 250*. In a query you can use the "Like" statement, so something like:
SELECT * FROM tablename WHERE tablecolumn LIKE "*02 250*"'

The underlying problem here is that your database isn't normalised. In particular Atomicity: Each attribute must contain a single value, not a set of values. To get what you need from your database you have to split that field.

Hi

I am having a little problem with a database which I am tring to create I have a table called tblshop1 and another table called tbltariffs. tblshop1 has a column called offer (this column has the phones, tariffs and offer) I want to match records from this coloumn to records in tbltariffs in a column call tarrifs using a query:

The data in the offer column is in the following format:
Motorola V3 black on O2 250 with 50 messages (24 mths)
Motorola L6 + 17" LCD TV on T-Mobile Relax 35 (12 month)

The column of tariffs has records such as:
O2 250
T-Mobile Relax 35

I need to find out how I can get Microsoft access to match price plans such as "02 250" and "T-Mobile Relax 35" to records in the tarrifs column located in tbltariffs using QUERY. so i dont have to go through each record and select the price plan from the list box. I also want to match the records and display them seperately in a coloumn in tblshop1. Is this possible???

Thanks for merging this into one thread Greg.

Is there a problem with the answer I gave above Massfone? If you tell me which bit you're having trouble with I can--hopefully--help.