| The Microsoft Office Access 2003 database management system can be a powerful tool for you whether you need to handle business or personal information. The concept of distributing data among related tables is not new, but the way the concept is implemented in Access 2003 makes information management a snap. Access 2003 is extremely flexible and can be applied to any environment. With Access, you can design and build complete applications with virtually foolproof data entry and retrieval functions and adaptable user-interactive vehicles.
Access’s main features are the objects that you can create and combine to produce a complete information management system:
■ Tables are the containers for the data. They consist of fields that can contain data of many different types. ■ Queries are the questions you ask of the database. They can extract specific data from multiple tables or even perform actions such as insert, update, or delete certain records. ■ Forms display data from one or more tables in an informative design. Forms are used for data entry and display. ■ Reports are used for distributing printed information from one or more tables. ■ Macros are lists of actions that work together to carry out a particular task in response to an event.
As an integral member of the Microsoft Office 2003 family, Access 2003 has become very cooperative in working smoothly with the other members. For example, it can provide the mailing list for Word’s Mail Merge document or send data to Excel for analysis and charting. Access can also easily import and link to data in other program formats. |
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