#  Other Applications & Softwares  > Access Tables & Databases >  >  " is not a valid name. Make sure that it does not include invalid characters or..." error

## ewong

hi,

i keep on getting this message: "is not a valid name. Make sure that it does not include invalid characters or punctuation and that it is not too long." when i try to import an excel file...

there are no invalid chars or anything of that sort in the file name. the file name is "Korea Jul'12 All Account"

at first i thought it might be due to the apostrophe sign so i renamed it to "Korea Jul12 All Account" but it still gives me that error msg.

Anyone knows what happened?

Thankss

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## JosephP

do you have a blank header in any columns? (if you press ctrl+end in the worksheet does the cursor to past the end of your actual data?)

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## ewong

no blank columns and it ends at the actual data when i pressed ctrl+end

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## ewong

even when i change the name of the file to something else, it still says "Korea Jul"12 All Accounts$ is not a valid name. Make sure that it does not include invalid characters or punctuation and that it is not too long." 

my file name is Korea Jul'12 All Accounts. But for some reason, when i try to import it to access it keeps on giving me the above error message with Korea Jul"12 All Accounts$ as its filename... why is that???

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## alansidman

Is the error message referring to the file name or is it referring to field names.  Have you tried changing the file name to something simple like KoreaJul12 so that you can determine if it is a file name issue or a field name issue.

Alan

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## ewong

file name... i am totally confused with this... i have changed it to something really simple multiple times (e.g. "korea account", "korea AllAccounts", etc) and it still doesnt work...

i am so frustrated right now. feels like banging my laptop...

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## ewong

i think this is one of those access glitches. coz there were times when it would run but there were more times where it would not run... i dont know what causes this... i find myself praying (literally) whenever i run the query...

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## alansidman

Try creating a new empty database.  Import all the objects from the old db to the new one.  Sometimes that will do the trick.  Do not copy and paste!  Import!

Alan

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## SamDeViney

I had a similar problem with Access 2007.  I was receiving the same error message ("is not a valid name. Make sure that it does not include invalid characters or punctuation and that it is not too long.) when I tried to modify any query using Design View.   I could edit using SQL View but Design View simply would not work.  

I finally solved the problem by reviewing all of my linked tables and removing one old and unused linked table.  I believe another piece of the this puzzle was that my database had been moved from one network location to another.  I think this problem began after the move.   Once I removed the linked table the Design View problem was gone.  None of these queries used that old linked table so it is odd that it affected the design view but that definitely appears to be what was causing my problem.  Hopefully this information will help others who encounter the same issue.

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