INTRODUCTION TO ACCESS

THE BREAKTHROUGH EXERCISE: MAKE A TABLE

Many people have never had to deal with tabular data before. They are not used to making tables out of information they deal with. If you don’t work with tables, this is a breakthrough exercise that will allow you to start your own work in Access.

Make a table that records some kind of information that you deal with. What is a table? It’s nothing more than a set of columns that have descriptive headings at the top. How should I do it, you may ask? Any way you can. You don’t have to do it in Access. You could do it in Word or Excel. You could do it on a sheet of notebook paper. The main thing is that you sketch out a structured way of keeping track of some kind of information that you deal with on a regular basis.

It looks like this:

HEADING 1	HEADING 2	HEADING 3
Example a	Example a	Example a
Example b	Example b	Example b
Example c	Example c	Example c

Really, it’s nothing more than a list of headings on top (FIELDS), and a series of example below (RECORDS). The hardest part is coming up with the structure or design of the table. That means deciding what headings you want to use.

Why is this a breakthrough exercise? Because if you can make yourself a table, then you will want to put it into Access. After that, you will be tempted to apply all the different skills we learn in class. Things like sorting, filtering, making forms and making reports.

Have fun! And keep it simple. Complexity will come later (believe me!)