About using criteria

Criteria allow you to specify one or more conditions to limit which records are included in the result set of a query. For example, consider the following table of data:

You can specify criteria to retrieve records as follows:

• You can find all the records with values that contain characters you specify. For example, you can find all the records for suppliers whose phone numbers begin with the area code (111). To use this criteria, you would click Orders:Phone in the Field box and then type Like '(111)%' in the Criteria box. You must place the text you want to find within single quotation marks.
• You can find records that don't match a value. For example, you can find all the records for suppliers who are located outside of the United States. To use this criteria, you would click Orders:Region in the Field box and then type <> 'USA' in the Criteria box.
• You can find records that contain missing or incomplete values. For example, you can find all the records for orders that are missing an order date. To use this criteria, you would click Reports_To in the Field box and then type Is Null in the Criteria box.
• You can find records that contain any of several values. For example, you can find all the records for suppliers located in Germany, France, or the USA. To use this criteria, you would click Orders:Region in the Field box and then type IN ('Germany', 'France', 'USA') in the Criteria box.

Note   When you select a criteria field, make sure that you use the field from the correct table. For example, if you want to find all the suppliers for a particular region, select the Region field from the Supplier table rather than from the Customer table.

Related topics

Retrieve records that match a specific value

Specify what records to retrieve by using criteria