Book Review

cover Microsoft Office Access 2003: step by step
Online Training Solutions Inc (2004)
Microsoft Press
ISBN-13: 978-0-7356-1517-5
ISBN-10: 0-7356-1517-9
317 pages + CD-ROM

Microsoft Access is a well known database package and having got to grips with much of File Maker’s basic capabilities, I thought I should move on to learning more about its apparently more grown up cousin.

Initially, I bought and started working through another book on Access 2003 (Virginia Andersen (2003) Microsoft Office Access 2003: the complete reference McGraw Hill Osborne ISBN 0-07-222917-9 719 pages plus CD-ROM £24.99) but even though it is well written and logical and methodical, I then went for the slimmer step by step approach.

The book is arranged in ten chapters:

Getting to know MS Access 2003
Creating a new database
Getting information into and out of a database
Simplifying data entry with forms
Locating specific information
Keeping your information accurate
Working with reports
Making it easy for others to use your database
Keeping your information secure
Working with pages and modules

The Accompanying Files

Overall, I like this book and one of the reasons I like this book is because, unlike the FileMaker Bible, the CD-ROM that accompanies this book includes a wealth of really useful worked examples. Every chapter and/or every exercise that we are encouraged to work through in this book has a specific example to go with it.

Moreover, since the files initially come from the CD, you can make as much of a mess of them as you like and you cannot have corrupted the original file. You can always go back to square one and start again if you need to!

Another reason for liking the book is that it is well written, in appropriate language by people who clearly know what they are doing; and who clearly know how to communicate their ideas.

The CD also contains a complete PDF version of the book: not everyone needs that but imagine you are going on holiday and you want some light reading … take the CD and your laptop instead of the book … take it when you go away on business and that’s the only chance you get to catch up on learning such things.

The Structure of the Book

Having worked through the book and irrespective of what I found with the FileMaker Bible, I found the structure of this book to be ideal. That’s not to say that the chapter on working with reports couldn’t be moved to be chapter five instead of chapter seven because it could.

I found the progression through the book to be logical and methodical: it starts with the rock bottom basics and by means of hands on exercises, takes us through the creation of a database from scratch; now to put information (well, data, actually!) into a database and then how to get it out again. From then on, the book takes us step by step through the basic intricacies of the Access 2003 database.

The Presentation of the Materials in the Book

Every chapter begins with a short list of learning objectives: in this chapter you will learn to … There is then a page or so by way of an introduction to the chapter and then the work begins.

You will see an average of a screenshot per page of what you should see as you work through the examples, for example, from chapter 1: getting to know Access 2003:

Datasheet View: page 7
Every Access object has two or more views. For tables, the two most common views are Datasheet view, in which you can see and modify the table's data, and Design view, in which you can see and modify the table's structure. Clicking the View button toggles the view of the open table between Datasheet and Design views. You can also click the clown arrow to the right of the View button and select a view from the drop-down list.
When you view a table in Datasheet view, you see the table's data in columns (fields) and rows (records). Page 6

There are very helpful pointers throughout the book too: icons in the margin telling the reader what a particular icon means or that this is the icon they need to find and use, to make their lives much easier.

Having developed the main concepts and practicalities of each chapter, there is a section entitled Key Points at the end of the chapter: these are bullet points of the main points from the chapter. For example, from chapter 3: getting information into and out of a database:

Key Points

Access 2003 makes it easy to import information in numerous formats from other programs. If the information is still being actively maintained in another program and you want to bring it into Access to work with it, you can link your Access database to the information in its original program.

You can import entire Excel worksheets, or a named range from a worksheet into a new table or an existing table. You can also import specific fields from a worksheet or range.

You can use the Import Wizard to import delimited and fixed-width text files into your Access database.

You can easily import one or more of the standard Access objects: tables, queries, forms, reports, pages, macros, and modules.

You can import data from certain versions of dBASE, Lotus 1-2-3- and Paradox into Access. You can choose to import information as it is and manipulate it in Access, or you can move it into some other program, such as Excel or Word, and manipulate it there before importing it into Access.

You can import a document saved in HTML format by another program into Access. If you attempt to import an HTML document into Access, it will parse the document and identify anything that looks like structured data. You can then look at what Access has found and decide whether or not to import it.

You can import Extensible Markup Language (XML) files into Access. XML consists of data and a schema, which describes the structure of the data. Programs that export to XML might combine the data and schema in one file, or might create two files. If the program exports two separate files, you will need both files to import both the data and the structure into Access.

You can export the information in your Access database in a variety of formats, depending on the object you are trying to export.

You can leave data in another program and link to it. You can also copy and paste data from your database into other programs. A quick way to share the information in an Access database with Word or Excel is through the OfficeLinks button on the toolbar. You can merge the data in the table with a Word mail merge document, publish the table in a Word document, or export the table to an Excel worksheet.

Pages 80 – 81

I think this is a very thorough book as you should be able to tell just from the two extracts I have shown here.

Apart from Turning Data into Information what does Access 2003 do for us?

Fair question do you think? After all, you can see from my review of the FileMaker Bible that I think that database software has a great deal to offer anyone who has either the time to devote to learning them and/or has someone in their organisation who knows and understands them.

Yes, it is a fair question: one of the reasons why I decided to learn how to use Access 2003 so quickly after having learned how to use FileMaker is contained in chapter 10: Working with pages and modules. By pages they mean data access pages and they are those marvellous pages on a web site that you can sort, add to, edit, interrogate … interactive. As a web master or, say, as a financial analyst, data access pages might be a God send. The web master can use a data access page to upload a catalogue or a menu or a list of books or journal articles to a web site in a most effective and simple way. Web masters who use a lot of tables in their web site will appreciate that database software will prepare tables for them quicker and better than anything else.

If you don’t need a data access page on your site, you can have a static web page on which Access 2003 can place exactly the same as with a data access page but without the interactivity and flexibility. Even that could be a major improvement for web masters than the old hand cranked table preparation method. I know, I’ve been preparing those tables by hand and by using a spreadsheet since around 1995. If only I’d taken that advice about using databases seriously!

FileMaker’s web page capabilities are relatively severely limited relative to Access 2003: FileMaker has not been designed for web interactivity and there is no shame in that. Access 2003 has the definite edge in this respect, therefore.

Who is this book for?

Are you a grammarian? If so would you rather I’d started this section with For whom is this book?; or At whom is this book aimed? I think there are two definite markets for this book:

1 I haven’t said so until now but there is such a thing as the Microsoft Office Specialist Programme and this book has been written as a distance learning style of text for them:

A Microsoft Office Specialist is an individual who has demonstrated worldwide standards of Microsoft Office skill through a certification exam in one or more of the Microsoft Office System desktop programs including Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint®, Outlook®, Access and Project. Office Specialist certifications are avail¬able at the "Specialist" and "'Expert" skill levels.

Visit www.microsoft.com/ojficespecialist/ to locate skill standards for each certification and an Authorized Testing Center in your area.

Page xxi

2 The absolute beginner looking for a user friendly and useful introduction to the subject of the Access 2003 database program.

I don’t know the details of the Specialist programme but the authors have been careful to ensure that such readers can identify within the book any material exists that they must read and apply. They do this by highlighting such text with this specialist logo:

Access 2003 clearly has a lot in common with FileMaker since they are both relational database programs; but it is sufficiently different to warrant investing in a book such as this one. I thoroughly recommend it. I have appreciated a great deal more about Access 2003 than I know I would have than just by working through the help files and any tutorials I might have found on the internet, for example.

Would I Recommend that you buy this book?

Yes! Without a doubt, if you need to learn Access 2003 from scratch, this really is a book that you would be well advised to buy. You will only get most benefit from the book, I think, if you work through the exercises on the CD-ROM: be prepared to spend as much as an hour or more on each chapter, depending on your reading speed and basic familiarity with a computer. That’s not too much to ask it is!

Duncan Williamson
27th September 2006