The Absolute Beginners Guide to Microsoft Access

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Access Beginner Level 1 is the perfect starting place for anyone who needs to learn the basics of building databases with Microsoft Access. This class is for the beginner who has little or no experience with Access, however even if you've been working with Access for some time, you may still benefit from these lessons. Consider this the perfect way to learn the fundamentals. Get started by watching the introduction lesson on this page. To continue on with the full class, click on the Watch Now button below.

Watch Now for Free!

All of my Beginner Level 1 courses are absolutely FREE. Click on the Watch Now button to begin.

What's Next?

• Purchase Access Beginner Level 2 for just $1. That's another 80-minutes of tutorials for just a dollar!

Resources

• Full Course Lessons Page
• Course Topic Outline
• Access 2013 Beginner 1

Topics Covered

In Lesson 1, we're going to learn what Microsoft Access is, and what it's used for. You will learn some database terminology. We'll discuss the benefits of a database. We will learn about the parts of a Microsoft Access database including tables, queries, forms, and reports. 

In Lesson 2, we're going to discuss planning your database. What tables do you need? What fields should go in each table What should your forms and printed reports look like?

In Lesson 3, we're going to get started creating our first new blank database file. We'll go over the Access Interface, switch the setting from Tabbed Documents to Overlapping Windows, and we'll learn how to handle that security warning that comes up when you open an Untrusted Database.

In Lesson 4, we're going to create our first table. We'll learn about field names, naming conventions, data types, and we'll start building the Customer Table.

In Lesson 5, we're continuing with building the Customer Table. We're going to decide whether certain fields should be text or number. We'll learn about long integers and doubles. We'll see why you should always include an AutoNumber ID field. You'll see how to move fields around in the table. We'll save our table, and learn about naming conventions. We'll learn about the Primary Key field.

In Lesson 6, we're going to learn how to enter and edit data in our Microsoft Access Tables. We'll see AutoNumbers in action, learn how to resize a column, discuss 2-character state codes, only storing digits in phone number fields, various date/time formats that are allowed, what #### in a field means, see how the Date Picker works, what the 2-digit year cutoff date is, how to toggle a yes/no field with the keyboard, how to open the Zoom window, and learn what Dirty records are.

In Lesson 7, we're going to enter more records into our table. I'll show you where and how to download my copy of the database so you don't have to do a lot of typing if you don't want to. We'll learn about record selectors, how to turn off the delete confirmation warning, how to save table layout changes, and how to move columns around. We'll also discuss how AutoNumbers are not reused and why you shouldn't worry about them.

In Lesson 8, we'll learn how to sort and filter our records. You'll see how to perform a single-field sort. You'll learn the difference between text, numeric, alphanumeric, and date sorts. You'll remove the sort. Then, we'll see how to filter records. If the boss only wants to see customers from New York, you'll know how to apply that filter to display the correct records. You'll learn how to print a table or send it as an email attachment. 

In Lesson 9, we'll learn how to create queries to display our data in different ways. We'll see how to add a table to a query, add fields from the table to the query, and run the query to display results. Then we'll learn how to add sorting to our query using multiple fields, and add criteria.

In Lesson 10, we're going to build a customer form to present our user with a nice friendly interface for adding and editing records. We'll see how the quick form builder works. We'll learn about navigation, layout view, deleting records, and the different types of forms in Microsoft Access.

In Lesson 11, we're going to learn the right way to build a form using form Design View. This is a preview of a lesson that I normally used to cover in Level 2. We'll learn about setting the Record Source, adding existing fields from the table to the form, resizing objects - your labels and your text boxes - and changing colors.

In Lesson 12, we will learn how to make a couple of different customer reports. We will start with a simple customer support, showing one customer at a time. Then we'll make a customer list report so we can see all of our customers listed on a single page. They we will make some mailing labels, and we will only send mailing labels to active customers. We'll also learn about some different concepts like paper size, margins, printing, and so on.

Finally, we'll take some time to go over popular questions that I've been asked over the past 20 years of teaching this course. We'll discuss creating a customer list form, deleting database objects, keeping an existing ID, what happens to deleted AutoNumbers, using Access as a letter writer, the free RunTime edition, how to manage multiple phone numbers, importing data from Excel, customer classifications, stopping users from making design changes, using Access over the Internet, creating a Menu system, backing up your database, and more.

Watch Now for Free!

All of my Beginner Level 1 courses are absolutely FREE. Click on the Watch Now button to begin.

Questions?

Please feel free to post your questions or comments below. Thanks.