Link a Design to a Database

1. Select Database on the Edit menu, then Linked Database...

2. Select the type of database you want to link to. (See Select what you want to do in the Linked Database Wizard)

3. Click Next.

4. Click the ... button to select a file name.

•	If you are linking to an existing database or Database Link File select that file.

•

If you are creating a new Database Link File then choose a folder and enter a name for the database link, select the database type then click the Build Connection button to build your database connection and select a table. (Click Help on the Database Link Properties dialog box for additional help.)

•	See Database File Selection for more information.

5. Click Next.

6. Specify Filtering Rules Tab

On this tab you can specify rules for filtering the records in the selected database. For example, you can use all records where the LASTNAME field is equal to 'Smith' or where the ZIP field is not equal to 12345. If you do not want to specify an rules click Next.

1. Select the field you want to compare.

2. Select the type of comparison:

Equal To

This comparison equates to true when the field is exactly the same as the comparison value.

Not Equal To

This comparison equates to true when the field is not exactly the same as the comparison value.

Less Than

This comparison equates to true when the field is less than the comparison value.

Greater Than

This comparison equates to true when the field is greater than the comparison value.

LIKE	This comparison equates to true when the field is similar to the comparison value. There are two special wildcard characters used with LIKE, % and _. % represents zero or more wildcard characters and _ represents exactly one wildcard character.

For example:

Name LIKE 'Pa_' is true when Name is Pam, Pat, Pan, Paw, etc.

Name LIKE 'To%' is true when Name is Tom, Tommy, Top, To, Tomali, etc.

Name LIKE '%a%' is true when Name is cat, dad, daddy, ash or any word than contains the letter a.

3. Enter the value the field should be compared to.

4. Click Add Condition.

5. Optionally click Add AND or Add OR to add additional conditions then repeat steps 1 - 4.

See Specify Filtering Rules tab for more information.

7. Click Next.

8. Specify Optional Sorting Options

1. Select the field you want to filter.

2. Select either Ascending or Descending.

3. Click Add Sort Criteria.

4. Optionally repeat steps 1 - 3 to add additional sort criteria.

5. Click Next.

See Sorting Rules for more information.

Note:

•	Database and Data Link files are stored, by default, in the database folder specified on the Folders tab of the Options dialog box. You can change this setting or override the location when you select or specify the filename.