Access 2007 Forms and Reports For Dummies

Brian Underdahl, Darlene Underdahl

• Publisher: For Dummies
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9780470046593
• eBook ISBN: 9781118050767
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Desktop Applications
• Index: Computer Science

Do you have tons and tons of data on your computer but you're not quite sure how to make heads or tails of them—or even organize them? Are you using Access as spreadsheet rather than what it was really meant for? If you have trouble finding meaning in your data, then Access 2007 Forms & Reports for Dummies let you discover the wonders of this highly useful program.

This no-nonsense guide gets right down to business by showing you the easy way to use this powerful tool. It gets you started with selective, targeted queries; forms that improve efficiency; and reports that communicate—while sparing you of any fancy language. This hands-on guide features clear, concise instructions that show you how to:

• Orient yourself with forms and reports
• Create and modify queries
• Build and edit forms
• Design and update reports
• Troubleshoot queries, forms, and reports
• Make your forms useful
• Add multiple tables to forms
• Add finishing touches to reports

Thanks to the included references, Web sites, and informative tips, putting your data to good use has never been easier. You'll even add some pizzazz to your reports with handy suggestions on ways to wow your viewers. With Access 2007 Forms & Reports for Dummies, you will be creating effective queries, forms, and reports in no time!

Part I

Accessing Both Ends: Getting Data In and Info Out

In this part . . .

You need a good foundation if you’re going to build anything useful and long lasting. In this part, I make sure that you have a good foundation for the topics in the rest of the book. Here you discover the basics of queries, forms, and reports that you really need but that you may have missed up until now.

Chapter 1

Getting to Know Forms and Reports

In This Chapter

Introducing forms

Understanding reports

Using forms and reports together

Introducing queries to your forms and reports

Looking for extra add-ons

Without forms and reports, an Access database is just a jumble of hard-to-use information. But with really good forms and reports, that same database becomes both informative and a joy to use. Well-designed forms and reports make your Access databases into something that’s far beyond the ordinary in utility, ease of use, and flexibility.

If you’ve been playing around with Access for a while, you have probably at least tried to create some forms and reports. Maybe some of your efforts didn’t seem too bad, but you’ve probably had your share of frustration, too. Creating forms and reports that really do what you want them to do can be an awfully exasperating experience.

In this chapter, I show you a number of interesting things about forms, reports, and their sidekick queries so that you can see what each of them can do and why they’re all important. You see how queries can greatly enhance the capabilities of forms and reports. I finish up the chapter by very briefly mentioning some really cool tools (find out even more about them in Chapter 20).

Finding Forms Fascinating

In order to understand the importance of forms in an Access database, begin by looking at the alternative. Figure 1-1 shows the Datasheet view of a typical Access table. (A table is the structure in which Access stores information in your database.) The Datasheet view looks an awful lot like an Excel worksheet. You are likely pretty familiar with this view of a database because it seems as though almost everyone’s first attempt at a database is to just create a list in a spreadsheet. Welcome to the “if the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail” club!

Figure 1-1: The Access Datasheet view of the information in a table looks like an Excel spreadsheet.

In Datasheet view, each record is displayed in a single row, with columns for each of the database fields. Even though this view of the data is probably pretty familiar, it isn’t very convenient. For one thing, unless you’re keeping track of only a little information about each item, it’s really hard to see an entire record in Datasheet view because everything has to fit into one row. That means you have to scroll back and forth to see all of the fields. Depending on the length of each field, sometimes you can’t even see the entire contents of a single field on-screen. And don’t even think about seeing a single record wrap around and take up multiple rows — making everything fit on-screen simply is not an option.

Of course, some other factors make the Datasheet view pretty inconvenient for most purposes. Can you imagine how little fun it would be to scroll through screen after screen trying to find a specific record in Datasheet view? Now imagine that instead of finding a single record, you want to find a dozen or so related records in a table containing 10,000 or more records. It’s almost enough to make you want to move to a desert island where there aren’t any computers, isn’t it?

Fortunately, there’s a good solution at hand in the guise of forms. Access forms provide a much more convenient way for you to interact with your database. Learning to create great forms is certainly going to be a lot easier than packing up your stuff for that move to a desert island. The following sections give you a look at some of the ways forms can help you.

Streamlining data input with forms

No database has much value until it contains information. You wouldn’t be able to get any useful data from an empty database, so a very important task in creating a database is inputting your data. Sure, you might have some existing data that you can import, but even that data required input at some point.

Entering data into a table in Datasheet view really isn’t much fun. You first have to open the table and then locate the record where you want to enter your data. Maybe you’re adding to an existing record, or perhaps you’re adding a new record right after the last existing one in the datasheet. When you’ve selected the correct record, you have to move the insertion point to each field in turn and type in the information. It’s easy t...

Table of contents

• Title
• Contents
• Introduction
• Part I : Accessing Both Ends: Getting Data In and Info Out
• Part II : Creating Effective Queries
• Part III : Building Really Useful Forms
• Part IV : Designing Great Reports
• Part V : Way Cool Advanced Queries, Forms, and Reports
• Part VI : The Part of Tens
• : Further Reading