Cook Ken - Access 2016 For Dummies

Access 2016 For Dummies

Published by: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774, www.wiley.com

Copyright 2016 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2015950108

ISBN: 978-1-119-08310-8

ISBN 978-1-119-08327-6 (ePDF); ISBN 978-1-119-08308-5 (ePUB)

1. Table of Contents

Welcome! Thank you for selecting this book. We assume youve done so because youre hoping it will explain how to use Microsoft Access 2016, and of course, as the authors, we believe this was a wise decision. We, the authors, base this belief on the fact that both of us have been teaching and using Access for a very long time, and we know how to share what we know with our students.

So what was it that made you seek out a book on Access? It might be that youve been asked to use it at work, or perhaps you run your own business or are managing a non-profit organization. If any of these is the case or if youre just a regular human with a lot of personal contacts and irons in the fire, you need Access to organize your data. You need it so you can find a name or a transaction in seconds after a few keystrokes, not after minutes spent leafing through your files or swiping apps this way and that on your smartphone. You need it so you can produce reports that make you look like the genius you are. You need it so you can create cool forms that will help your staff enter all the data youve got stacked on their desks and in a way that lets you know the data was entered properly so that its accurate and useful. You need Access so you can find little bits of data out of the huge pool of information you need to store. So thats it. You just need it.

With all the power that Access has (and that it therefore gives you), there comes a small price: complexity. Access isnt one of those applications you can just sit down and use right out of the box. Its not scarily difficult or anything, but theres a lot going on and you need some guidance, some help, and some direction to really use it and make it bend to your will. And thats where this book a reference for the rest of us comes in.

So youve picked up this book. Hang on to it. Clutch it to your chest and run gleefully from the store, or click the Add to Shopping Cart button and sit back with an expression of satisfaction and accomplishment on your face, because youve done a smart thing (if we dont say so ourselves). When you get home, or when the book arrives in person (or when you download it to your hand-held device), start reading whether you begin with or whether you dive in and start with a particular feature or area of interest thats been giving you fits. Just read, and then go put Access to work for you.

You need to know only a few things about your computer and Windows to get the most out of Access 2016 For Dummies. In the following pages, we presume that you

• Know the basics of Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 how to open programs, save your files, create folders, find your files once youve saved them, print, and do basic stuff like that.
• Have some goals that Access will help you reach. You

  • want to build your own databases

    and/or

  • want to work with databases that other people have created.
• Want to use and create queries, reports, and an occasional form.

• Have Windows 7, 8.1, or 10

  If your computer uses Windows 98, 2000, or Vista, you cant run Access 2016.

When something in this book is particularly valuable, we go out of our way to make sure that it stands out. We use these cool icons to mark text that (for one reason or another) really needs your attention. Heres a quick preview of the ones waiting for you in this book and what they mean.

Tips are incredibly helpful words of wisdom that promise to save you time, energy, and the embarrassment of being caught swearing out loud while you think youre alone. Whenever you see a tip, take a second to check it out.