Customer Reviews

Access 97 Bible

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

This book contains one continuous example that builds from chapter to chapter. Many of our employees have used this book to learn Access from. It can teach a person with no knowledge of database by starting from Chapter 1 or Information System Professionals can skip the fluffy concepts in the beginning and get into the meat of Access from chapter 7. The middle 1000 pages explain each and every feature of basic Access tables, queries, forms and reports. For those people who want to program, the second to last section covers events, macros, and VBA. The last 300 pages covers advanced features like security, client/server, and replication, and more. We love this book at our company. The CD has great programs on it from Database Creations, the company that the authors run. Great free programs and code examples and a bunch of demos for their add-on developer tools. They have won a lot of awards and you get many hundreds of dollars of productive software programs and examples.

Unfortunately, the title leads you to believe there is more content than actually exists. This book is for those who want to create a very basic Access application and database. If you need to write useful pass-through queries, or link meaningfully to external data sources, then you will be disappointed. I am saddened to see that so many technical writers want to use a fluffy example for their books, rather than one based on real life. So many topics (controls, queries, external data sources, SQL) are glossed over that it was difficult to glean any useful tips for more intermediate/advanced problems. The index is horrible. Do yourself a favor and check the book out in person before buying it online at Amazon.

I don't know what everyones problems are with this book. I have read it from cover to cover and enjoyed learning all it had to offer. It isn't made for advanced users, as it states on it's cover. However, for beginners, this book is excellent. It will teach you to do everything needed for creating a general database. However, if you are an advanced user it would be a waste of good money. I was new to database programming, and found that with this book and another on Visual Basic, I was able to program a very impressive database that is currently in use be several users of my organization. It is the backbone of the business. So, if you need to learn Access from the start, this book is an excellent starting point.

I really like the Bible series and for the subject (Access 97), it is a pretty good book. However, Access 97 is getting outdated and this review is whether or not you should upgrade to Access 2000 books. The answer is yes. Here's why.

If you do not have Access 2000 and are thinking about this book because you only have Access or Office 97, I HIGHLY suggest getting Access 2000 Bible anyways. Access 2000 really hasn't changed much from Access 97, and most of the things that have changed do not apply to a beginner's book, which I would consider this to be. The menu commands and basics of database design, tables, queries, forms and reports have not drastically changed between Access 97 and 2000. You can get away with using a 2000 book if you are still on 97.

Having said that, if you have either finished this book or are looking for the "next step" Access book to use after this one, please check out "Access 2000 Developer's Handbook Volume 1: Desktop Edition", ISBN 0782123708. It is a great follow-up, intermediate Access user's book.

I knew nothing about designing databases before picking up this book. This book is fantastic, it lays out the information in a way that is easy for people who are not computer savy to understand. It covers essentially everything you want to know about tables, queries, forms, reports and macros but only scratches the surface of modules/VBA. If your looking for a book that covers VBA this is not the book for you. After 3 months I not only learned Access but built a pretty savy database at work. I definitely recommend this book to all beginners and people who just want to improve their database design. Overall very pleased with the book.

I purchased the Access 97 Bible awhile back and feel it is a great book for novice Access users such as myself. I needed to get up and running with Microsoft Access and wanted a book with good examples on building an access database. This was the book for me.

I felt the authors did a wonderful job of explaining complex, technical topics so that they were easy to understand and comprehend.

Unlike many technical books, this book contains many pictures and examples which helped me to understand the topics covered in the book. I did find some inconsistencies with some of the items on the CD, but a quick email to the author resolved my problems. They were very helpful on answering my questions with the book as well as other questions I had on Access.

Overall, I would recommend this book to anyone who is looking to learn about Microsoft Access and building database in Access.

This book assumes that you just don't know anything about any programming language, thus the author just does not bother talking in depth about some of the most important topics. I'm disappointed with this book. Such as he talks so little about how to use "!" and "." I would not recommend you buy this book if you want to design a database, however, if you want to learn how to "use" Access, then this is the one for you.

For developers, you should consider "Access 2000 Developers's Handbook" Volume1.

This bible book sometimes scrutinize things that aren't important. However, there's no better book on the market for beginnners except this one. However, The book's examples are very good and really interesting

This is one of the worst books I've seen for computer software since it has very few examples to build expressions WHICH YOU NEED TO KNOW in order to design within Access. I'm a beginning low-level intermediate user of Access and I was able to get more help from the help button on Access for designing than this book! Get another book, BUT DON'T GET THIS BOOK! Totally wasted my money on it! :-(

I bought this 1400 page to learn different parts of Access forms and reports. What I found was this book taught me Access from the ground up. I already had used databases and Access for a few months so I just skipped Parts I and II and used the last 900 pages. What I found was a great example that I could jump right into, skip around and still be productive. The best coverage of queries, forms, and reports, More than I expected. I was thoroughly pleased with this book.

I purchased this book and found it very useful and practical. It didn't scare me with a lot of cryptic terminology and charts. And it didn't lose me in a sea of mind-boggling technical jargon I was not familiar with. It stepped through the building process comprehensively, for the most. There were a few glitches on the CD, and in some parts some of the exercises didn't seem to work or produced an error message. But overall, it was a good, comprehensive book. Not for computer gurus, definitely, but for someone needing the basics or looking to refresh, it is very useful.

I had tried some of the Idiot's books on Access as well as a much more expensive copy from Microsoft Press. The Idiot's books tended to insult my intelligence, while the Microsoft Press book found me snoring on my keyboard. This one kept me awake and informed.