Microsoft Access Manual 1

ByDhawala Kovuri

Elham S.KhorasaniIsmail Guneydas

Creating a Blank Database

1. Open up Microsoft Access2. Click on Blank document button3. On the right panel, Specify the location

for saving your database and click on create.

Creating Table

• When creating a blank database, by default a blank table will be created .You can rename this table by simply right-click on the table name and choose rename.

• For creating a new table, click on the create tab and on the ribbon choose table

• The left panel is called the navigation bar and shows all the tables that have been created for this database.

Modifying Table

• There are two different views used for modifying tables:1. Datasheet view: used for inserting data to the

table2. Design view: used for modifying the table

structure(fields)

Design view

• Design view is where you can define your table fields and their data types.

• Before switching to the design view, the table must be given a name.

• By default an “ID” field is generated for each table. This field is a unique identifier of each record. It is referred to as the Primary Key Field. It is automatically incremented when a new record is added to the table.

Primary Key• A field, or a collection of fields, in a table is designated as

the primary key.

The primary key uniquely identifies a record in the table.

Example: SSN is unique for each person, therefore it can serve as a primary key for the “person” table.

To set a field as a primary key, right click on the field name and choose the primary key option.

To set more that one filed as a primary key, first select all the fields, then right click and choose primary key option.

Field properties

• Each field has some propertiesthat can be changed. Some of these properties are:Field Name: Field Type:Field Size: Specifies the max size of the field. For example

“first name” is not usually bigger than 50 charactersCaption: specify the label for the field when used on the

form, by default caption is the field nameDefault value: a value that automatically entered in this

field for new records

Example (Client Table)• As an example, let’s create a new table to

store client’s information and name it “client”. • Each client, has these attributes: SSN,

firstname, lastname, phone, address, yearsOfFirm

• SSN is the primary key for this table.• Firstname is not usually more than 40

characters, so the field size of firstname is specified as 40.

Datasheet view

• Datasheet view is usually used for inserting/deleting/modifying records in the table.

• Remember the data that you enter for each field must match the data-type and attributes of the field, for example in the person table, we specified the data type of the phone field as a number, now if I try to insert something like 453-6025 in phone field, access gives an error. Therefore the data type of the phone field should have text rather than number.

Adding/deleting Records

• For adding a new record after a row, select the entire row, right click and choose new record option.

• For deleting an existing row, select the entire row, right click and choose delete row option

Sort records

• For sorting records by a specific field, right click on the column and choose “sort” option.

• For example, sorting the records by their firstname in the person table

In-lab Exercise 2

As an exercise create a student table with the following fields: StudentID :Number, Primary key Name: text, fieldsize:50 Nationality: text ,fieldsize:10 Graduate: Yes/No Tuition: Currency Major: text, fieldsize:15

Insert some record to the table and sort the table by “name” field.

Submit your file to the blackboard under lab-exercise2 link.