These groups become individual tables, creating your relational database of books.

All that power makes Access an application thats not so easy to learn on your own.

In fact, you can use very little of everything Access has to offer and still create quite a significant solution to your needs for storing and accessing data all because Access can really do it all enabling you to set up a database quickly, build records into that database, and then use that data in several useful ways.

Well, the list of what you can do with it is a lot longer than the list of what you cant do with it of course, especially if you leave things like wash your car and put away the dishes off the cant do list.

When it comes to data organization, storage, and retrieval, Access is at the head of the class.

Although you can use Microsoft Excel to store lists of records, it limits how many you can store (no more than the number of rows in a single worksheet).

In addition, you cant use Excel to set up anything beyond a simple list that can be sorted and filtered.

So anything with a lot of records and complex data is best done in Access.

Access offers not only forms but also features that can create a quick form through which someone can enter all those records.

This can make data entry easier and faster and can reduce the margin of error significantly.

This includes duplicate records, records with misspellings, and records with missing information and thats just for openers.

So you need an application such as Access to ferret out those errors and fix them.

Access has powerful reporting tools you can use to create printed and onscreen reports and those can include as few or as many pieces of your data as you need, drawn from more than one table if need be.

You can tailor your reports to your audience, from whats shown on the reports pages to the colors and fonts used.

Access provides several tools for sorting, searching, and creating your own specialized tools (known as queries ) for finding the elusive single record or group of records you need.

You may have used certain tools to import data from other sources such as Excel worksheets (if you started in Excel and maxed out its usefulness as a data-storage device) and Word tables.

Access saves you from reentering all your data and allows you to keep multiple data sources consistent.

How do you know whether your data needs to be in separate tables Think about your data is it very compartmentalized Does it go off on tangents Consider the following example and apply the concepts to your data and see if you need multiple tables for your database.

The table contains the company names, their contact person, and the address, email, and phone number information to reach them.

But dont worry Access isnt so rigid that chaos will ensue if you begin building your tables and forget something (a field or two, an entire table).

You can always add a field that you forgot (or that some bright spark just told you is needed) or add a new table after the fact.

But planning ahead as thoroughly as possible is still essential.

Draw arrows to show how they might be related its sort of like drawing a simple family tree and youre well on your way to a well-planned, useful database.

Dont be afraid to go overboard you can always skip some of the items in the list if they dont turn out to be things you really need to know (or can possibly find out) about each item in your database.

Micrsoft Access For Mac