Microsoft+Access+tips

Microsoft Access is a program that is highly functional and is an impoortant program for those who need to stay organized and have things set up so that they can tell what is going on, the input and the output. Microsoft Access is a confussing program when you first start, for example, you may have difficulty deciding which references are supposed to be linked, how to link groups, quirries, tables, and reports. Microsoft Access 2007 allows you to set up relationships that allow you to use accounting and budgeting, you can relate a customer to their account with you and see all of the accounts that you have all at once, seeing how much they paid, how much they owe you, date they entered into a contract with you, anything that you percieve to be needed information can be shown. It is easy to update and edit information, the easiest was is in the Datasheet View, where you just click on the box that you need to edit and change the numbers, however if there are alot of fields and contacts, it is simple to find the personal contract by narrowing down the criteria or by creating a quicksearch for that contract. There's also many applications that can be used to save time and hastle. For example, automatic time stamps, this uses the now function; you determine the table that you want to use the time stamp for, in the design view click the view button and go to the ribbon, on the column that you want the time stamp click the arrow to the right of the box and click on Date/Time, in the field properties pane at the bottom type Now than click the arrow next to the row that says Show Date ticker and select never, by doing this it will automatically update your timestamp for you. Another time saving method and tip is if you have a document in excell and want to convert it over to Access than there is a very simple and quick way to do this, click on the External Links on the ribbon and than go to the Excel button which is around the middle, and select the document that you want to use. Microsoft Access is a great application once you understand what needs to be done, and is a great way to organize and keep updated.

David Marsden

__**Rafael Irula**
 * __A FEW MICROSOFT ACCESS HINTS__**
 * When creating a parameter query, make sure the prompt is not the same as a field name.Also try to avoid from writing too much text in the prompt dialog box.
 * ​ In a parameter query all text is valid except punctuation like "!" "." and brackets.
 * When creating a query criteria, dates should be enclosed by hash marks "#".
 * __CALCULATIONS IN QUERIES__**
 * In the new field definition what goes to the left of the colon becomes the new field's name and what goes to the right becomes the calculation.
 * Remember to follow the usual rules for naming fields with no illegal characters and choose a name that does not already exist amongst those tables that are being calculated.
 * Make sure you spell the names of the calculated fields correctly (a good reason for keeping field names short) and remember to enclose field names in square brackets

Changing the Case of letters in a Field __ There's a quick and easy way to change a field to this format, and it doesn't even require a macro. Go to Design view in a table or report. Select the field. View the Properties for the field and select the Format Tab. Type a greater than symbol (>) in the format property to make the field uppercase, or a less than symbol (<) to make the field format to lowercase.

__ Speedy Selections __ With a record selected in the Datasheet view, you can select an entire row by pressing Shift+spacebar. Press Ctrl+Shift+spacebar to select the entire datasheet; press Ctrl+spacebar to select an entire column.

__Bringing Data from Excel to Access__ To bring data from a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet into Access, first open both programs. Highlight the data in Excel and grab the edge of the highlighted data, then drag it to the Windows 95 Taskbar and drop it onto the Access icon. Access will automatically import the data. Joe Viviani