Customer Reviews

Microsoft Access 2003 Forms, Reports, and Queries

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

McFedries has essentially produced a first course on SQL, using Microsoft Access as the user interface into a relational database. There are sections of the book about fairly simple UI controls and their usages. Like how to change fonts or colours. Mundane stuff.

But the book goes much deeper. It shows how Access can teach you much about many relational database topics. Table relationships, referential integrity, multiple table queries, table joins and so on. En route, the author gently introduces examples of SQL queries. The full syntax of which is complex enough to deter many new users. But by seeing the queries used in many simple contexts should help your retention.

So the book serves two purposes. The first is to learn Access. The second is to learn SQL and relational databases, using Access just as a means to an end.

This book is terrific. It has helped me go from a novice user of Access, to a very proficient user. It has everything you need to know to build a solid database in an accessible format. The information is easy to find and incredibly easy to understand. I use it at work and I am continually having to track it down because it gets borrowed by my coworkers. Finally I asked the company to just buy a second copy, which they did.
I cannot recommend this book highly enough if you need a reference manual for forms, queries or reports. I have another Access book that is 1400 pages, but I never use it because this small book is a thousand times better, easier to understand, and provides on-point helpful information. I pull it out as soon as I'm about to work in Access and just keep it open on my desk. So far it's gotten me through everything I've wanted to do. Highly, highly recommended.

I just completed a very time-sensitive project with the help of this book, and would not have been able to meet my deadline without it! As a beginner/intermediate Access user, this book gave me all the information I needed to quickly throw together a database with a simple user interface that did some fairly complex calculations in the queries. Unlike Microsoft's online help, the excellent layout, table of contents and index of this book make it easy to find ways to accomplish what you need to do, even if you're not sure exactly what terminology to use. I would recommend this book for anyone who who knows that Access is capable of doing lots of cool tricks, but just isn't sure how to get it to do them.

Great book. It is very practical and useful. I have managed to do several things following the book as a model. I understood relational databases, but needed some ideas and how-to's for making an application spiffy. I wasn't sure the queries would be useful, but low and behold had to do some queries in another database and they were very useful (most of my databases are not number based). I highly recommend it as a practical guide to doing some cool things!

It is easy to follow, clear cut and useful. The reader should have a working knowledge of access. I found the work on queries best followed by reports then forms. It could use better proof reading but that's a minor thing compared to the books content. I definitely got the books price in useful information.

This book stays next to my computer at all times! (Along with the "Automating Microsoft Access with VBA" book in the "Business Solutions" series.)

I found great references for building criteria expressions, custom input masks and detailed query operations, along with modifying forms, queries and reports created with the access wizard.

Also a good resource for form error handling and data validation. I would recommend it to a newer Access user for a well-rounded introduction to customizing forms/queries/reports, or as a handy reference for intermediate users. It doesn't include much VBA; most of the changes made are through the form/report properties window or query builder window.

If you are a beginner then there is some value. Any higher skill level then you will find that the book lacks meat - nothing new or exciting or creative to forms, reports or queries that you could not get out of some dummy book. No cd to practice with and some of the examples are unclear.

This book is very useful for a beginner in Access. Not very difficult to go through, however, seems to lack examples. Nevertheless, the book is worth the purchase for someone willing to learn querying, reporting and forms.

This book is well organized and makes referencing functions, concepts and procedures easy for the busy working analyst. The book covers all the "little things" that makes Access the quicky but useful business tool. Excellent "on the go" reference, I didn't sit down to read this cover to cover but have managed to read most of the book just by looking up the one or two concepts I need at the moment. Excellent for office use!

I've never done SQL or DB programming before, but I have experience with data structures and programming in other languages. This book was a great reference tool to introduce me to the language. Most importantly, it laid out syntax very neatly. I skimmed through most of it in a few hours and was successfully writing SQL queries (no wizards) afterwards. The size of the book is really nice. A great reference to keep handy.