MS Access 2003 - Lesson 2: Using an Access environment

Lesson 1: Get familiar with Access

Allen WyAtt

Before working with Access, you need to start the program. Starting Access has many ways like starting other Windows programs. First, click your mouse on the Start menu, then select Programs . This way will display all the programs installed in the system. Then select Microsoft Access from the Programs menu. At that moment, you will see a 'Welcome to Access' message. At the bottom of the screen, you can see the status bar showing what happens while Access is loading.

When Access has been started, you will see a dialog box asking whether you want to create a new database ( Create a new database ) or open an existing Open an existing file , Figure 1.

Figure 1: You can create a new database or open an existing database

In the following articles you will learn how to create a database from scratch. Most of the time, you work with that database repeatedly so the bottom of the dialog lists a list of the 9 most recent databases that have been opened, along with the More Files option.

To see how Access works, open a sample data base with Access. To do this, click your mouse on the More Files option at the bottom of the dialog box, then click OK . Access displays the Open dialog box, Figure 2

Figure 2: Open dialog box

The Open box looks pretty familiar to you. It is like the dialog box used to open documents in any program. All you need to do is make sure you choose the right drive and folder, then select the file you want to open. The subfolder containing the sample database files will be in the Office installation directory on the main drive. If you need help outside where the sample databases are located, you can use the Windows search feature to find the Northwind.mdb file.

Locate and open the file in the Open dialog box, then click your mouse on the Open button. At that moment, the Access program window appears as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3: Microsoft Access program window

In the Access program window, there are several items that you should pay attention to. The first item is the bar menu, located at the top of the Access window. When working, the menus used may change depending on what component you are manipulating. The second item is the toolbar, displayed below the menu bar. The Toolbar icon lets you perform common tasks easily and faster.

Database window

One of the important parts of the Access environment is the Database window (Figure 3). You will see the Database window every time you create or download a database file (only works on one window). As in the first part of the introduction, you already know the database contains tables, forms, queries, reports, and other objects. The Database window allows you to select the database area to work with. To the left of the window is a series of buttons that indicate the type of object to track the database. When you click on one of those buttons, Access provides a list of objects. For example, if you look at the Database window in Figure 3, you will see a list of tables available in the Northwind database. When you click your mouse on the Form button, you will see a list of available forms (Figure 4).

Figure 4: The form displays the forms available in the database

Learn about the Wizard

Access is a very powerful tool, which helps you manage data almost in the way you imagine. With many database programs, you need to understand complex commands to use those features. That is not true for many features in Access. To overcome this problem, Access uses a series of Wizard to gradually complete the operations. You can call these Wizards by selecting tools from various toolbars, which can also be selected from menus in the database window. For example, when creating a new table in the database, simply double-click the Create Table By Using Wizard , it will bring up the database window as shown in Figure 3. The first step is that Access starts the Wizard. (Figure 5).

Figure 5: Wizard example

You work through the Wizard by answering questions in the dialog box or choosing from the information provided. Take each step by clicking the control button at the top of each dialog box.

Access provides Wizard to help create databases, tables, forms, queries, reports and charts. Use Wizrad to create objects in forms, reports, design labels and give information. In fact, the Wizard does very easy operations so they are used throughout this series. There are many parts you do that rely on Wizard.

Exploiting the help

Access provides a lot of help that you can use at any time, there are three main ways to help:

1. Office Assistant
2. Online help system
3. ToolTips

The simplest way to help in Access is to press F1 , which will display Office Assitant, which is a guided image to help you find the answers to the necessary problems. Often use Office Assitant when there is an action to be taken. This feature helps you throughout operations to complete the task. If in some cases for some reason, the Office Assitant does not appear when pressing F1, you can call help by selecting Show the Office Assistant from the Help menu.

If you want to log in to the help system in Access, use the Help menu that is available at all times. You can enter the Help system by clicking on the Microsoft Access Help button on the right on the toolbar, it has a question mark image.

Another help feature in Access is context-sensitive help . Start this feature by selecting What's This from the help menu. When using this help and clicking another option in an Access environment, the help system displays a lot of information available in the topic that needs assistance. For example, when you select What's This and then click your mouse on a toolbar on the Toolbar, you'll see details about the tool. Context-sensitive help is a very powerful feature that can be used for immediate assistance.

Another feature of Access is ToolTips . These tips show everywhere you click above a tool on the toolbar. For example, Access displays the Tooltip as shown in Figure 6 if you move the mouse over the scissors tool. A small yellow box appears below the cursor indicating the purpose of the tool.

Figure 6: ToolTips help you understand the purpose of the tools

Lesson 3: Consider working ability