by
Laura C. Larsson
What Is Microsoft Access 97?
Table of Contents
What is a Relational Database?What is MS Access?
Access Wizards
For More Information
Page References
What is a Relational Database?
A relational database like Access 97 is a powerful tool which can help you store and manage large amounts of information of various kinds. Databases enable you to organise and reorganise information, quickly and flexibly retrieve information, and print quite a variety of reports.By and large, a database is a collection of information. Common collections of information include: the telephone book, the card catalog, Medline (online database), or your personal list of phone numbers and addresses contained in a Rolodex or in your personal information manager (PIM).
The beauty of a relational database system is that you can store related data in separate tables. Then through defining relationships between the tables you can retrieve the information in the tables to use for making queries and writing reports.
A database program like Access 97 is software specially designed for managing a database.
The four main elements of a relational database include
- tables for storing data
- forms for entering and viewing data on the screen
- queries for extracting specific information from the data (asking questions)
- reports for printing query results
We mentioned above that a database can be used to organize and reorganize information. In fact, we can find data by creating and using queries. Although we will be generating queries, we will not be learning the underlying SQL language. SQL statements filter the database using a structured language thereby capturing specified information.
Data in the database can be sorted and the order of fields can be re-arranged without affecting the actual data. Reports and labels can be generated through generating an ordered list of fields and records.
One more important concept to keep in mind is that when you are creating a database, you must strive for complete uniqueness. In other words, no data in your database should be redundant. Redundant information lends itself to errors, plus it adds to the size of the database unnecessarily and is hard to keep up to date.
A relational database is one in which records are linked so that changes
in one table are reflected in another. The tables are related together
in a one to one, one to many (most common) or many to many fashion. I have
not found a really good definition, but this one comes close:
A Relational Database Management System is "a type of
database management system (DBMS) that stores
data in the form of related tables. Relational
databases are powerful because they require few
assumptions about how data is related or how it will
be extracted from the database. As a result, the
same database can be viewed in many different
ways."
What is MS Access?
Microsoft Access is another of the tools in the Office 97 Suite which enables the user to turn data into answers and to share up-to-date information with others. Data from Excel spreadsheets can be converted to Access databases and data from Access can be published on the Web in HTML format.Access is a 32-bit program which enables the user to create a complete
front-end user application. The program is complete integrated into the
rest of the Microsoft Office Suite which means that the user can move data
into and from Word, Excel and PowerPoint.
Access Wizards
Like the other Microsoft programs, Access employs Wizards to help you create tables, reports or queries. Wizards ask you questions about what it is you want to design and then does the design work for you based on the responses to your questions. Periodically we will be using Wizards to organize our database.For More Information
Refer to Microsoft Access Help, especially: Introduction to Microsoft Access 97 and Getting Help.Page References
RDBMS (Webopedia) 1998. http://www.pcwebopedia.com/RDBMS.htm
Next: Converting Excel to Access
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