Datasheet

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
What do I mean by big database? I mean any database with a lot of records.
And by
a lot, I mean hundreds. 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, you are limited as to how many you
can store (the number of rows in a single worksheet) and you can’t set up
anything beyond a simple list that can be sorted and filtered. So anything
with a lot of records is best done in Access.
Some reasons why Access handles big databases well:
 Typically, a big database has big data entry needs to go along with it.
Access offers forms, or more accurately, the ability for you to 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 for error
significantly. Check out Chapter 5 for more information on building
forms.
 When you have lots and lots of records, the margin for error within
them — duplicate records, records with misspellings, records with miss-
ing information — is great. So you need an application like Access to
ferret out those errors and fix them. See Chapter 9 to see how Access
lets you find and replace errors and search for duplicate entries.
 Big databases mean big needs for accurate, insightful reporting. Access
has powerful reporting tools that allow you to create printed and on-
screen reports that include as few or as many pieces of your data as you
need, and to include data from more than one table in the report. You
can tailor your reports to your audience, from what’s shown on the
reports pages to the colors and fonts used.
 Big databases are hard to wade through when you want to find some-
thing. Access provides several tools for sorting, searching, and creating
your own specialized tools (known as
queries) for finding the elusive
single record or group of records you need.
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Part I: Basic Training
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