Datasheet

come back after several years away. Keeping all of the past members in
the database may not always be reasonable, but having an end-of-year
membership report stored away is a useful way to keep the data in case
you need it again in the future.
 If you run a small business, you probably want to keep track of your
exact inventory at various times of the year. A dated report of your
inventory stored offsite could be extremely valuable if you ever needed
to file an insurance claim after an untimely disaster or did a one-on-one
with the tax man.
 If you go into business with someone else, an Access report showing
exactly which items you contributed to the business could save some
arguments in the event you later split up. (Sure, you both know now that
the extremely rare Babe Ruth baseball card is yours, but wouldn’t it be
nice to be able to prove it when your former partner tries to sell it for
$10,000?)
Even if you do keep the printouts, it’s also a good idea to keep backup copies
of your database in case of an emergency. But be very careful that you don’t
accidentally overwrite your current database file with an old copy if you do
need to open your old file; you can easily destroy months or even years of
work if you’re careless.
Seeing Why Both Forms and
Reports Have a Place
Forms and reports seem somewhat similar in that they both provide ways
to look at data that aren’t available in the datasheet view of a table. Do you
really have to learn how to create both of them? Yes. Using forms and reports
isn’t an either/or proposition.
Even though forms and reports share some characteristics, they do have
important differences, and your databases will lack a little something if you
use one (and not both) of these tools.
Here’s a list of things you should know about choosing reports or forms:
 If you want to add, remove, or change data in a table, use a form.
Sure, you can filter the data that appears in a report so that it appears as
though some of the data has been removed from the database, but that’s
not the same as actually deleting data.
 Use reports to view data in more than one record in a more perma-
nent format.
In general, forms display only a single record at a time.
In addition, because reports typically are meant to be printed, and
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Chapter 1: Getting to Know Forms and Reports
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