Beginning Access 2000 Vba [Illustrated] [Paperback]

Robert Smith (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1999

Access 2000 is the database of choice for the home and small business user. While its intuitive interface makes data storage and manipulation incredibly simple, you really need its underlying language to make the most of its features. The focus of the book is the programming language that underlies Access 2000 - Visual basic for Applications (VBA). VBA is the language that Microsoft is making standard across the whole Office suite of applications. VBA allows you to automate and secure your database, so your end-user need never know what goes on underneath. Its simple style allows even complete novices to programming to achieve impressive results with very little effort.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

This book is for the Access user who already has a knowledge of databases and the basic objects of an Access database such as tables, queries, forms and reports, but now wants to learn how to program with VBA. You don't need any prior programming experience, although a basic knowledge of Access macros would be helpful.

From the Back Cover

Access 2000 is the fifth version of the hugely successful desktop database from Microsoft. When it was first released in 1992, Access immediately gained praise for its ease of use and power. Each release of Access has added features and increased usability, and with Access 2000 we now have a unified development environment for the whole of the Office 2000 suite of applications. Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) is the programming language that gives Access its real power, allowing you to automate complex tasks and create applications with more scope and flexibility than is possible with its default forms and macros. VBA has a simple syntax allowing even complete novices to learn programming with very little effort, and this book illustrates the concepts with plenty of examples and exercises.

Who is this book for?

This book is for users who already have a basic knowledge of databases and the basic Access objects, such as tables, queries, forms and reports. You now want to expand on your existing knowledge of Access and wish to learn how to program in VBA. You don’t need any prior programming experience, although a basic knowledge of Access macros would be helpful.

What does this book cover?

• Constructing a substantial example application with VBA
• Mastering the foundations of Visual Basic for Applications
• Understanding the concepts behind classes and objects
• How Automation can be used to link Office applications
• Creating custom objects using the Class Module feature
• How to debug your programs and implement robust error handling
• Adding support for multiple users
• Publishing your Access database on the Internet
• How to optimize and add polish to your finished database application

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 900 pages
• Publisher: Wrox Pr Inc; Bk&CD-Rom edition (June 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1861001762
• ISBN-13: 978-1861001764
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.4 x 1.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,623,971 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars It's Good But Not For Absolute Beginners, March 7, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Beginning Access 2000 Vba (Paperback)

This is a solid book, nicely written, and the authors have obviously put a lot of thought and good effort into it. However, in it's introduction, the authors advise that you don't really need to know anything about programming in order to understand the book. In my experience that's not correct. While a beginner can understand parts of the book, you soon get the feeling that you are in over your head. It gets into fairly complex code quite quickly. It would be a great book if you are taking a class or have a teacher to explain the parts that need clarification. But for a beginner like myself trying to learn VBA on my own, it's too much too soon. Another thing that this book (or any book) could do to help you learn is provide a lot of problems at the end of each chapter for you to try and apply what you learned, sort of the way we learned algebra in high school.

Evan Callahan's Book, Step By Step Microsoft Access VBA is a much more basic beginner's book. It takes you by the hand and gets you writing code quickly. It does not take you very far into VBA, but does get you going.

The next book I'd recommend is VBA Handbook by Susan Novalis. It's a much more gentle intro than is Sussman's book. In fact, after you learn Novalis' book you will probably be ready for Sussman's book.

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Definitely NOT recommended for the beginner, February 16, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Beginning Access 2000 Vba (Paperback)

I bougth this book and discovered that it was not for someone like me just learning Access VBA.

In fact I had to buy Access 2000 VBA Handbook by Susann Novalis (ISBN 0782123244) simply this book did not cut is for me as a beginner. If you are starting out and know little or nothing about Access VBA DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK. Instead I recommend Novalis.

With Novalis, you will learn to create forms, print to list box, sort records, create recordset, simple SQL and much more that can get you started on creating greate Access databases using VBA.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars not a bad book to learn VBA, February 2, 2001

By 

"ewon" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Beginning Access 2000 Vba (Paperback)

This is a great book that covers many important aspects of VBA and access programming. The title "Beginning" of this book, however, is a bit misleading, because the pace is probably too fast for people who are new to coding. The exercises at the end of each chapter usually require the readers to use new things not covered in the book, so most of the time, I would have to look at the answers first, and then try to understand how the problems are solved. Therefore I feel that the authors are trying to jam in as much information as they possibly can on the topics within limited space. Fortunately the explanations for the codes are well done, and the author stick to their promise that this is a book about the VBA, not 'How-to-use-access'. The authors stick with DAO all through the book and leave out ADO entirely. I agree with them on that decision, so that one can really get a good feel for DAO and not lose focus trying to learn 2 technologies at once. If you can go through this book and understand the concepts and details, I would recommend, as the next step, a developer's reference, such as Access 2000 Developers' Handbook from Sybex.