Ten Minute Guide to Access 97

What Is a Query?

As you learned in Lesson 18, Access offers many ways to help you narrow down the information you're looking at, including sorting and filtering. A query is simply a more formal way to sort and filter.

Queries enable you to specify:

• Which fields you want to see.

• In what order the fields should appear.

• Filter criteria for each field (see Lesson 18).

• The order in which you want each field sorted (see Lesson 18).

Saving a Filter

When the primary purpose of the query is to filter, you may find it easier to create a filter and save it as a query. See Lesson 18 for details.

In this lesson, you'll create a simple query. In the next lesson (Lesson 20), you'll learn how to modify it to make it more powerful.