Let's save this report.

You can either click-on File (in the Menu Bar) and then Save or Save As, or click-on the small diskette button in the button bar.  A menu window will open which says Save As.  In the area under Report Name type-in Tabular then click-on OK.

This Report Wizard menu screen asks if you want to add Grouping.  Grouping simply “groups” records by an item in the report you are designing.  We’ll group by state.  This means that “records” from a state will be in a “group”  (e.g. people from Virginia will be in one group, the folks from Washington in another, and so on).  This will be easy to see when we look at the report.  So, click-on State, then click-on >.  If you make a mistake, no problem, just use the < or <<.  Your screen should now look like the one below.

Reports can be very complex.  In this tutorial we'll learn the basics.  A later advanced tutorial or a good manual will be essential to mastering reports.  

There are several types of reports.  We'll use the Wizards to design some.

So far we have listed everything under each Field Name that we selected.  However, many times you will probably want to find something specific in your Table (database - e.g.  people from a certain state or city, people whose favorite number is 7, or salaries between $ 20,000 and $ 50,000).  This is fairly common sense, but it can get tricky.

This is what a database is designed for: finding specific information about some of the data in the table(s) very quickly.  A query is a search for general or specific data in a field or fields in your database (e.g. the first and last names and birth dates of all employees, the Jones’s, the people from CA, salaries > $10,000, etc.).  In order to do this, we need to click on the fields we want to query.  So, let’s start by finding just Last Names in our table. 

In the Button Bar, just below and to the right of Help (in the Menu Bar), is a button with a lightening bolt and a small form.  This is the New Object: AutoForm Button.  Point to it, make sure you have the correct button, then click-on it.  A New Data Entry Form will automatically be created and appear. 

Click- in each area as you read about it below

Field Size    Is currently set to 50 characters.  That's pretty large for a name.  So, click-in this area and change the number to 25.

Click-on the New button in the Database: PERSON window (see arrow in image above).

Put a formatted disk in the A: drive.

Double click on the Microsoft Access 97 icon in the Windows 95 home screen, or click-on Start in the lower left corner of the screen, and then click-on Microsoft Access.