Access 2010 For Dummies

Laurie A. Ulrich, Ken Cook

• Publisher: For Dummies
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN: 9780470497470
• eBook ISBN: 9780470632710
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Desktop Applications
• Index: Computer Science

A friendly, step-by-step guide to the Microsoft Office database application

Access may be the least understood and most challenging application in the Microsoft Office suite. This guide is designed to help anyone who lacks experience in creating and managing a database learn to use Access 2010 quickly and easily.

In the classic For Dummies tradition, the book provides an education in Access, the interface, and the architecture of a database. It explains the process of building a database, linking information, sharing data, generating reports, and much more.

• As the Microsoft Office database application, Access may be the least understood and most challenging part of the Office suite
• Access 2010 For Dummies walks newcomers through building and using their first database
• Covers linking information in a database, setting relationships, modeling data, and building tables
• Explores how to extract data from Access and get specific answers, create forms, and export data in reports
• A section for more experienced users looks at analyzing errors and creating an interface

Fully updated for the newest version, Access 2010 For Dummies gets new Access users up to speed and helps veterans get the most from the Office database application.

Part I

Basic Training

In this part . . .

Don’t worry, even though this part of the book is called “Basic Training”, nobody’s going to shout at you or make you do pushups. We promise. Instead, you’ll find out what Access is, what it does, and how to get started using it.

The three chapters in this part of the book introduce you to what’s new in Access 2010, help you get comfortable with the Access 2010 workspace, and show you how to start building your first database. You also find out about some essential terms and concepts that will help you figure out — and talk about — your database needs at work, with clients, or if you’re trying to bore people to death at a party.

Ready? Then let’s get started!

Chapter 1

Getting to Know Access 2010

In This Chapter

Deciding when to use Access

Discovering what’s new in Access 2010

Unlocking the basics of working with Access

Figuring out how to get started

Access 2010, the most recent version of the Microsoft Office database application, is a very robust and powerful program. You probably already know that, and perhaps that power — or your perceptions of all that Access can do — is what made you reach for this book. We applaud your wise choice!

For all of its power, Access is also very — pardon the expression — accessible. It’s pretty easy to use at the edges, where a new user will be; you don’t have to venture all the way in to its core to get quite a lot out of the software. In fact, with just the basic functionality that you’ll discover in this book, you’ll be able to put Access through many of its most important paces, yet you’ll be working with wizards and other on-screen tools that keep you at a comfortable arm’s distance from the software’s inner workings, the things that programmers and serious developers play with. Feel better now?

You don’t have to use every feature and tool and push the edges of the Access envelope. In fact, you can use very little of everything Access has to offer and still have quite a significant solution to your needs for storing and accessing data — all because Access can really “do it all” — enabling you to set up a database quickly, build records into that database, and then use that data in several useful ways. Later on, who knows? You may become an Access guru.

In this chapter, you’ll discover what Access does best (and when you might want to use another tool instead), and get a look at what’s new and improved in Access 2010 (compared to Access 2007). You’ll see how it does what it does, and hopefully you’ll begin to understand and absorb some basic terminology. Now, don’t panic — nobody’s expecting you to memorize long lists of high-tech vocabulary or anything scary like that. The goal here (and in the next two chapters) with regard to terms is to introduce you to some basic words and concepts to help you make better use of Access in general — as well as better understand later chapters in this book, if you choose to follow us all the way to its stunning conclusion.

What Is Access Good For, Anyway?

What is Access good for? That’s a good question. Well, the list of what you can do with it is a lot longer than the list of what you can’t do with it — of course, only if you leave things like “paint your car” and “do the dishes” off the “can’t do” list. When it comes to data organization, storage, and retrieval, Access is at the head of the class.

Building big databases

Okay, what do I mean by big database? Any database with a lot of records — and by a lot, I mean hundreds. At least. And certainly if you have thousands of records, you need a tool like Access to manage them. Although you can use Microsoft Excel to store lists of records, it limits how many you can store (no more than the number of rows in a single worksheet). In addition, you can’t use Excel to set up anything beyond a simple list that can be sorted and filtered. So anything with a lot of records and complex data is best done in Access.

Some reasons why Access handles big databases well:

Typically a big database has big data-entry needs. Access offers not only forms, but also features that can create a quick form through which someone can enter all those records. This can make data entry easier and faster, and can reduce the margin of error significantly. (Check out Chapter 7 for more about building forms.)

When you have lots and lots of records, you also have lots of opportunities for errors to creep — duplicate records, records with misspellings...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Table of Contents
• Title Page
• Introduction
• Part I: Basic Training
• Part II: Getting It All on the Table
• Part III: Data Mania and Management
• Part IV: Ask Your Data, and Ye Shall Receive Answers
• Part V: Plain and Fancy Reporting
• Part VI: More Power to You
• Part VII: The Part of Tens