Access 2007 for Starters

by MacDonald, Matthew

• ISBN13: 9780596528331
• ISBN10: 0596528337
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-01-01
• Publisher: Oreilly & Associates Inc

Summary

This fast-paced book teaches you the basics of Access 2007 so you can start using the program right away. Rather than include every detail, Access for Starters: The Missing Manual shows you how to work with Access's most-used features and Microsoft's new context-sensitive user interface. Ideal for small businesses and households, Access runs on PCs and manages large stores of information, including data, pages of text, and pictures -- everything from a list of family phone numbers to an enormous product catalogue. Microsoft have completely redesigned the user interface for Access 2007 with a tabbed toolbar and context-sensitive menus that makes features easy to locate.

Author Biography

Matthew MacDonald is an author, educator, and software developer. He is the author of Excel 2007: The Missing Manual and several books about .NET, including The Book of VB .NET (No Starch), ASP.NET: The Complete Reference (McGraw-Hill), Microsoft .NET Distributed Applications (Microsoft Press), and several more. He is a regular columnist for Inside Visual Basic, and has been involved in non-programming writing projects like the classical All-Music Guide.

Table of Contents

Introduction

What You Can Do with Access

The New Face of Access 2007

About This Book One

Storing Information in Tables

Creating Your First Database

Understanding Access Databases

Getting Started

Creating a New Database

Understanding Tables

Creating a Simple Table

Editing a Table

Saving and Opening Access Databases

Making Backups

Saving a Database with a Different Name or Format

Opening a Database

Opening More Than One Database at Once

Opening a Database Created in an Older Version of Access

Creating Another Database

The Navigation Pane

Browsing Tables with the Navigation Pane

Managing Database Objects

Building Smarter Tables

Understanding Data Types

Design View

Organizing and Describing Your Fields

How Updates Work in Design View

Access Data Types

Text

Memo

Number

Currency

Date/TimeYes/NoHyperlink

Attachment

AutoNumber

The Primary Key

Creating Your Own Primary Key Field

Six Principles of Database Design

Choose Good Field Names

Break Down Your Information

Include All the Details in One Place

Avoid Duplicating Information

Avoid Redundant Information

Include an ID Field

Mastering the Datasheet: Sorting, Searching, Filtering, and More

Datasheet Customization

Formatting the Datasheet

Rearranging Columns

Resizing Rows and Columns

Hiding Columns

Freezing Columns

Datasheet Navigation

Sorting

Filtering

Searching

Printing the Datasheet

Print Preview

Fine-Tuning a Print out

Blocking Bad DataData Integrity Basics

Preventing Blank Fields

Setting Default Values

Preventing Duplicate Values with Indexes

Input MasksUsing a Ready-Made Mask

Validation RulesApplying a Field Validation Rule

Writing a Field Validation Rule

Creating a Table Validation RuleLookups

Creating a Simple Lookup with Fixed Values

Adding New Values to Your Lookup List

Linking Tables with Relationships

Relationship Basics

Redundant Data vs. Related Data

Matching Fields: The Relationship Link

Linking with the ID Column

The Parent-Child Relationship

Using a Relationship

Defining a Relationship

Editing Relationships

Referential Integrity

Navigating a Relationship

Lookups with Related Tables

More Exotic Relationships

One-to-One Relationship

Many-to-Many Relationship

Relationship Practice

The Music School

The Chocolate Store Two

Manipulating Data with Queries

Queries That Select RecordsQuery Basics

Creating Queries

Creating a Query in Design View

Creating a Simple Query with the Query Wizard

Queries and Related Tables

Joining Tables in a Query

Outer Joins

Multiple Joins

Query Power: Calculated Fields and Text Expressions

Calculated Fields

Defining a Calculated Field

Simple Math with Numeric Fields

Expressions with Text

Queries That Update Records

Understanding Action Queries

Testing Action Queries (Carefully)

The Action Query Family

Update Queries

Append Queries

Creating an Append (or Make-Table) Query

Delete Queries Three

Printing Reports and using forms

Creating Reports

Report Basics

Creating a Simple Report

Arranging a Report

Adding and Removing Fields

The Many Views of a Report

Creating a Report from Scratch

Printing, Previewing, and Exporting a Report

Previewing a Report

Exporting a Report

Getting the Save As PDF Add-inFormatting a Report

Formatting Columns and Column Headers

Filtering and Sorting a Report

Filtering a Report

Sorting a Report

Creating Simple Forms

Form Basics

Creating a Simple Form

Using a Form

Sorting and Filtering in a Form

Sorting a Form

Filtering a Form

Using the Filter by Form Feature

Saving Filters for the Future

The Form Wizard Four

Sharing access with the rest of the world

Importing and Exporting Data

Case for Importing and Exporting

Understanding Exports

Understanding Imports

Using the Clipboard

Copying a Table from Access to Somewhere Else

Copying Cells from Excel into Access

Import and Export Operations

Importable File Types

Importing Data

Importing from an Excel File

Importing from a Text File

Exportable File Types

Exporting Data

Index

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.