Chapter 6. Working with Queries

CHAPTER TASK: CREATE A VARIETY OF QUERIES THAT ANALYZE AND MANIPULATE DATABASE INFORMATION

Prerequisites

• How to use menus, toolbars, dialog boxes, and shortcut keystrokes.

• How to open and modify database objects.

• A basic understanding of queries: how to specify criteria and sort information.

Queries are the stars of Microsoft Access. Queries make sense out of all the thousands of jumbled records and display exactly what you need to know. Queries discover things like what the average price of tea in China is or which customers bought the most parakeet food from your company. Queries can even make widespread changes to the records in your database without wearing out your mouse and keyboard! For example, a delete query can automatically delete a whole bunch of records that meet your criteria.

In this chapter you will learn how to harness the power of queries. First you will learn about all the different types of queries: simple select queries, parameter queries that prompt you for more information, crosstab queries that summarize records in an easy-to-understand format, and action queries that actually modify the records in your database.

All this power comes with a price tag: Many people find that queries are one of the more difficult database objects, and learning how to fully utilize queries isn't something you can learn in an afternoon. By the time you finish this chapter, however, you will have a good start towards understanding and mastering queries.