ACC: How the Windows Code Page Affects Sort Order

Advanced: Requires expert coding, interoperability, and multiuser skills.

This article discusses how the Windows code page (or character set) affects the availability of particular sort orders for the default setting of the NewDatabaseSortOrder property in Microsoft Access.

Microsoft Access has a default setting for the NewDatabaseSortOrder property (see the General tab under Options on the Tools menu) that enables you to create a database using a specific sort order. This property determines how characters are sorted in the entire database (tables, queries, reports, and so on).

If you plan to use a database with multiple language editions of Microsoft Access, you should set the default for the NewDatabaseSortOrder property to General. The General setting is the most compatible sort order across the various language editions.

The default setting for the NewDatabaseSortOrder property is General, which is designed for use with the following language editions of Microsoft Access:

• English
• French
• German
• Italian
• Portuguese
• Modern Spanish

In addition to the General setting, you can choose from several other sort orders:

• Traditional Spanish
• Dutch
• Swedish/Finnish
• Norwegian/Danish
• Icelandic
• Czech
• Hungarian
• Polish
• Russian
• Turkish
• Arabic
• Hebrew
• Greek

However, to create or open a database with a specific sort order, your Windows operating system must have the code page (or character set) to support the selected sort order. If Windows has an incorrect code page, you may receive the following error message when you open or create a database:

For more information about mixing Microsoft Access language editions, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

142867  (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/142867/EN-US/ ) ACC: Mixing Language Editions of Microsoft Access and Windows

For detailed information about the sort orders used by various language editions, please see Appendix D in the following book: