Access 2013 Bible

Introduction

Welcome to Access 2013 Bible, your personal guide to the most powerful desktop database management system available today.

If you've picked up this book, you've probably already recognized that Microsoft Access can help you manage your data in ways that no other application can. Even the king of applications, Microsoft Excel, can't do what Access can. Now, it may seem silly to compare Access (a database management application) with Excel (a spreadsheet application), but there is no doubt that Excel is being used every day to manage and analyze large amounts of data in all kinds of organizations. Indeed, you may be opening this book because you need to get past the limitations of Excel.

Access is an excellent (many would say logical) next step for the analyst who faces an ever-increasing data pool. Access takes very few performance hits with larger datasets. It has no predetermined row limitations. And it can effectively manage the relationships between disparate data tables. In addition, Access comes with tools that help you build your own distributable applications.

Today, when we have more data than ever and more demands for complex data analysis, power analysts need to add some tools to their repertoire in order to get away from being simply “spreadsheet mechanics.” That's why this book is such an important step in the evolution of your skillset. Throughout this book, not only will you get an introduction to Access, but you'll also learn various ways in which ...