People Always Ask: Which Class Covers [Topic]?

I get a lot of people that send me emails asking questions like "which class covers reports?" or "which class covers form design?" Unfortunately the answer to those questions is not that simple.

Most people are familiar with textbooks that are broken up into chapters that cover a specific topic. Indeed most Microsoft Access books that I have are broken up into chapters that cover tables, queries, forms, reports, macros, and VBA programming as separate topics. Chapter 1 might teach you everything there is to know about tables. Chapter 2 might teach you everything there is to know about queries. And so on.

This is known as depth-first learning. It's good for a reference book if you want to look up something. But in my opinion, it's not good for people who are learning Access for the first time*.

I prefer a breadth-first learning approach. I teach you a little bit about tables, then a little bit about queries, then a form or two, then a report. Then we go back and do more with tables, queries, etc. I think this works much better for learning something new. You'd get bored if I drilled down into multi-field composite keys when I cover tables in the first class when you can't appreciate them yet. You'd be lost if I talked about many-to-many relationships, junction tables, and referential integrity if you can't even build a simple query yet. See?

So if you want to know which class covers reports, for example, then I need to know what specifically about reports you want to learn. You can use the Search Page on my website or even check the Access Topic Index and press Ctrl-F to do a keyword search. Type in the word "report" and you'll see there are (as of today) 295 instances of that word. I do cover a lot about reports. I cover the basics of building a simple report in my very first class, Access Beginner 1. We build a more complicated reports and Access Beginner 6 and 9. And so on up through the rest of the levels.

Learning with my tutorials is not like learning with a textbook. I've done my best to provide you with search tools so you can find what you're looking for, but honestly I recommend you just sit back, relax, follow the lessons in order, Don't Skip Levels, and that's the best way to learn Microsoft Access.

*Reference Book

Now if you are looking for a good reference book, and are past learning the basics, I do highly recommend the Microsoft Access Bible. It's the book that I originally used to learn Access way back in the early 90s. It's been revised and updated throughout the years, but it's still the best general Access reference book on the market. I made a video review of the Bible a little while back.

Links

• My Search Page
• Access Topic Index
• Microsoft Access Bible
• My video review of the Access Bible
• Access Beginner 1
• Don't Skip Levels