Part 1: Par t Title
The Many Faces of Microsoft Access
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Pa rt 1: Understanding Microsoft Access
Down the left side of the Database window is the Object bar, which allows you to choose one
of the seven major object types: tables, queries, forms, reports, data access pages, macros, and
mo dules. In the lower part of the Object bar, you ca n define custom groups to help organize
your work. You’ll see how to work with groups later in this chapter.
At the upper left corner of the Database window you can see three toolbar buttons. The first
button changes depending on the type of object you select in the database window, but, in
general, this button allows you to open or run the object. For example, you can select a table
in the Database window and then click the Open button to see the data stored in the table
(Datasheet view). The Design button allows you to view and modify the object’s definition
(Design view). The New button allows you to begin defining a new object. When the Data-
base window is active, you can choose any of these command buttons from the keyboard by
pressing the first letter of the button name while holding down the Alt key.
To the right of these three buttons, you can see the Delete button that you can click to delete
the currently selected object, and four buttons to change the view of objects in the Database
window to large icons, small icons, list, or detail view. (I personally prefer detail view, as
shown in Figure 2-4.)
Tables
Click Tables on the Database window Object bar to see the list of tables defined in the Hous-
ing Reservations database, as shown in Figure 2-5.
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Figure 2-5. The tables in the Housing Reser vations database.
At the top of the tables list in the Database window are three special shortcuts for creating a
new table. You can double-click any of these shortcuts to begin defining a new table.
Note
You can remove the new object shor tcuts from the Database window by choosing
Options from the Tools menu, and then clearing the
New object shortcuts
option on the
View tab.
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