What are the main features of MS Access?

Answer

Microsoft Access calls anything that can have a name an object. Within an Access Database, the main objects are tables, queries, forms, reports, data access pages, macros, and modules.

Database

A database is files in which you store data include all the major objects related to the stored data; including objects you define to automat the use of your data. In other database systems, the term database used to refer to only those files in which you store data.

Here is a summary of the major objects in an Access database.

Table

An object you define and use to store data. Each table contains information
about a particular subject, such as customers or orders.
Table contains Fields (or columns) that store different kinds of data, such as a name or an address, and, Records (or rows) that collect all the information about a particular instance of the subject.

E.g. All the information about a company

You can define a primary key (one or more fields that have a unique value for each record) and, one or more indexes on each table to help retrieve your data more quickly.

Query

Query in an object that provides a custom view of data from one or more tables. In Access, you can use the graphical query by example (QBE) facility or you can write SQL statements to create your queries. You can define queries to select, update, insert, or delete data. You can also define queries that create new tables from data in one or more existing tables.

Form

An object designed primarily for data input or display or for control; of application execution. You use forms to customise the presentation of data that your application extracts for queries or tables. You can also print forms. You can design a form to run a macro or a Visual Basic procedure in response to any of a number of events- for example, to run a procedure when the value of data changes.

Report

An object designed for formatting, calculating, printing, and summarising selected data. You can view a report on your screen before you print it.

Data Access Page

An object that includes an HTML file and supporting files to provide custom access to your data from Microsoft Internet Explorer. You can publish these files on your company intranet to allow other users on your network who also have Office 2000 and Internet Explorer version 5 or later to view, search, and edit your data.

Macro

Macro is an object that is a structured definition of one or more actions that you want Access to perform in response to a defined event.
For example, you might design a macro that opens a second form in response to the selection of an item on a main form. You might have another macro that validate the content of a field whenever the value in the field changes. You can include simple conditions in macros to specify when one or more actions in the macro should be performed or skipped. You can use macros to open and execute queries, to open tables, or to print or view reports. You can also run other macros or visual Basic procedures from within a macro.

Module

It is an object containing custom procedures that you code using Visual Basic. Modules provide a more discrete flow of actions and allow you to trap errors something you can't do with macros. Modules can be stand-alone objects containing functions that can be called from anywhere in your application, or they can be directly associated with a form or a report to respond to events on the associated form or report.

Table stores the data that you can extract with queries and display in reports or that you can display and update in forms or data access pages. Notice that forms, reports, and data access pages can use data either directly from tables or from a filtered "view" of the data created by using queries. Queries can use Visual; Basic functions to provide customised calculations on data in your database. Access also has many built-in functions that allow you to summarise and format your data in queries.

Events on forms and reports can "trigger" either macros or Visual Basic procedures.

Event

Event is any change in state of an Access object.
For example, you can write macros or Visual Basic procedures to respond to

• Opening a form
• Closing a form
• Entering a new row on a form
• Changing data in the current record

Control

Control is an object on a form or report that contains data. You can even design a macro or a Visual Basic procedure that responds to the user pressing individual keys on the keyboard when entering data.

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First answer by FatD. Last edit by FatD. Contributor trust: 30 [recommend contributor]. Question popularity: 6 [recommend question]