On Pages 36 and 37 we showed you how to create a report using a Report Wizard – to give you a “feel” for how Reports are produced.  A really neat new feature of Access 2007 is what we’ll call “Quick Reports.”  Now that you know how to use the Wizard and understand basic reports, you can create similar – simple reports – with a couple of “clicks.”

On Pages 43 and 44 we saw that the Salary, Sum and Average numbers were “cut off.”  We’ll now show you how to widen the boxes so you can see “all the numbers.”

In addition to the change to the Design View, you will see that the Home Tab/Ribbon is replaced by a Report Design View Tab/Ribbon.  In previous versions of Access, small menu windows would open for Design View.  These have now been placed in the Tab/Ribbon you see below.

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 <. 

Reports can be very complex.  In this tutorial we'll cover the very basic steps of creating Reports.  A good manual or some knowledgeable assistance will be essential to mastering reports.  

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. 

If you are not in the Query Design Screen, you’ll need to be in that view.  So, go to the Design Screen.  Notice that the third row, in the lower half of the screen, indicates Sort: (like the image at the right). 

It took a lot of “clicks” to get to Print Preview.  So, let’s add the Print Preview button to our Quick Access Toolbar at the top of the screen. Then all we’ll have to do is click this button for a Print Preview!

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, just 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. 

As indicated previously, you have a choice to enter your data.  You can use the Datasheet View, like we have done so far, or you can use a Form.  Both methods work well.