Introducing Databases
IIHE  |  Education  |  Getting Started With Microsoft Access  |  Introducing Databases

Microsoft Access is a powerful database manager that gives you the power to organize, find, and present information.

When you run Microsoft Access, you see this window:

From this dialog box, you can create a new database (or at least start the creation process) or open an existing database. The white box near the bottom of the screen shows the last four databases that you have opened. If the name of the database that you want to open is in the list, you can open it by double clicking on its name. If you don't see the name of the database that you want to open in the list, double click on More Files... For our tutorial, highlight More Files... and click on the OK button:

The standard Open File dialog box appears. Your screen may not be quite the same as this. What you need to do here is locate the database that you want to open. The Sample database is in the Database folder, open the Database folder by clicking once on the folder "Database" in the white box and then clicking on the Open button:

The database we want to open is called Sample. Depending on your computer settings, the extension, ".mdb", may not be shown on your screen. Open the database by double clicking on Sample (if you click too slowly, the text editing cursor, the I-beam, will appear in the word Sample. By locating the mouse cursor on the icon the left of Sample and double clicking, you can open the database):

Now we have the database open. Each of the tabs at the top of the database window takes you to one of the sections of an Access database. The database is made up of tables, queries, forms, reports, macros, and modules:

Tables	Tables contain information about a particular subject, such as customers or orders. Tables contain fields (or columns) that store different kinds of data, such as a name or an address, and records (or rows) that collect all the information about a particular instance of the subject, such as all the information about a customer.
Queries	A query is a way to retrieve selected information from one or more tables. Queries can be used to retrieve information from a database or to update information in a database.
Forms	A form is used for data input, display and for controlling the use of the database. You use forms to customize the presentation of data that your application extracts from queries or tables. Several forms are included with the sample database. They make it easy to create customized queries.
Reports	Reports are used for formatting, calculating, printing, and summarizing selected data. You can view a report on your screen before  printing it.
Macros	A macro is used to repeat repetitive steps. We will not be using them.
Modules	Modules are used to store custom programming. We will not be using them.

You move to one of the sections by clicking on the corresponding tab. Other sections of this documentation describe how to use some of the tabs.

 

Start of Tutorial  |  Getting Started With Microsoft Access  |  Using Tables

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Copyright 1999-2004 by Henry Ford Health System
Last modified: 07/28/04