Chapter 11: Locating Specific Information


Overview

In this chapter you will learn to:

  • Sort information.

  • Filter information in a table.

  • Filter by form.

  • Locate information that matches multiple criteria.

  • Create a query in Design view.

  • Create a query with a Wizard.

  • Perform calculations in a query.

A database is a repository for information. It might hold a few records in one table or thousands of records in many related tables. No matter how much information is stored in a database, it is useful only if you can locate the information you need when you need it. In a small database you can find information simply by scrolling through a table until you spot what you are looking for. But as a database grows in size and complexity, locating specific information becomes more difficult.

Microsoft Office Access 2003 provides a variety of tools you can use to organize the display of information in a database and to locate specific items of information. Using these tools, you can focus on just part of the information by quickly sorting a table based on any field (or combination of fields), or you can filter the table so that information containing some combination of characters is displayed (or excluded from the display). With a little more effort, you can create queries to display specific fields from specific records from one or more tables. You can even save these queries so that you can use them over and over again, as the information in the database changes.

A query can do more than simply return a list of records from a table. You can use functions in a query that perform calculations on the information in the table to produce the sum, average, count, and other mathematical values.

Working with the GardenCo database, in this chapter you will learn how to pinpoint precisely the information you need in a database using sorting and filtering tools, and queries. Note that you cannot continue with the database from the last chapter; you must use the practice files on the companion CD-ROM.

See Also  

Do you need only a quick refresher on the topics in this chapter? See the Quick Reference entries on pages xxxiii.

Important  

 On the CD    Before you can use the practice files in this chapter, you need to install them from the book s companion CD to their default location. See Using the Book s CD-ROM on page xxi for more information.




Microsoft Office 2003 Step by Step
MicrosoftВ® Office ExcelВ® 2003 Step by Step (Step By Step (Microsoft))
ISBN: 0735615187
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2005
Pages: 350
Authors: Curtis Frye

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