Access Tutorials

Microsoft Access Overview

Microsoft Access is a relational database application. The main objects in Microsoft Access are Tables, Views, Forms and Reports.

Tables
Data is stored in tables in a database. A table is comprised of columns. Each column has a data type, data length and other types of properties associated with it.



Views
A view is a saved sql query of data within a table or group of tables. A query is comprised of one or more sql statements. A sql statement is comprised of sql reserved words and database object names.

In this SQL statement which can be saved as a view in Access, all the records from table1 are to be retrieved:

Select * From Table1;

The words "Select" and "From" are SQL reserved words as well as the "*" symbol meaning all fields. "Table1" is the name of the table we want to retrieve the records from.

Forms
Access forms are used to present data contained in a table or view in a more user friendly graphical manner. The data within a form can be edited.


Forms can also have programming code embedded within it.


Reports
Access reports are also used to present data contained in a table or query but the data can not be edited.

Access reports include common reporting features such as grouping and functions to manipulate, format and summerize data.