Wrox Press is a computer book publisher which advocates writing in a clear, jargon-free style, "how-to" books that fulfill real demands. Their goal is to publish for the novice as well as for the experienced programmer. Their policy is to conduct continuous research on all of their titles and, so, in support of that effort, they solicit reader feedback-by phone, fax, or mail (e or otherwise) -as well as a visit to their home page.
The Beginner's Guide to Access 95 uses a relaxed style and visual format. The book is designed to teach the reader how to create and use a relational database. It starts with an Excel spreadsheet, explaining the similarities between the spreadsheet and database concepts.
Each chapter works you through examples: creating tables, designing forms and reports, then manipulating the data and, finally, transferring and linking data to other applications such as other Access (or other) databases, Excel spreadsheets, Word, Powerpoint, etc. There is a chapter addressing SQL and Advanced Queries, a section on security including creating user groups and setting passwords and a section on the general administration of a multi-user system.
The appendix lists functions by name and type, each with a "plain English" answer to the questions about what it means. It has a corresponding list of explanations for macro actions-very handy when you can read what it says but you don't understand what it's saying.
Almost every page has at least one "screen shot" or "screen capture" which shows you what you're supposed to see on your monitor screen-if you've correctly followed the instructions to that point-very supportive to the learner! Interspersed in the text are two types of conventions. The first is called "Try It Out - How Do They Work? which is the series of steps required to accomplish a given task. The second is "FYI" which gives extra details. Both of these are handy "ready-references" and allow the reader the opportunity for added reinforcement.
There is a disk for interactive learning. The book guides you through the process. The requirements for running the disk are a PC running Windows 95 or NT and Access 95. The book recommends Office 95. The reason for Office is that the Author approaches Access from the direction of a spreadsheet. He uses Excel as his example. Chapter one starts with instructions for entering information into an Excel spreadsheet and then importing the spreadsheet into Access. Real handy if you have your data already in Excel but not if you don't or don't want to mess with it. Chapter 2 covers the new Access 95 sample databases (22) and shows how to use the database Wizard. The reader must skip to Chapter 3, however, before finding out how to start from scratch to build a database in Access. The disk with the samples and tutorial requires 5 megabytes of free space on the hard drive.
Wrox Press
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LCCN #95-61788 ISBN #1-874416-82-6
copyright 1996
Sug List Price $34.95 US