12.15: Putting It Together- Microsoft Access Basic Skills
Learning about Microsoft Access teaches us much about relational databases in general. Databases are made up of tables containing information organized into columns and rows. The rows are records and the columns are fields that have specific formats. Information is divided into multiple tables based on category—for example, a table for Customers, one for Orders, one for Products, etc. These tables are linked through the use of primary keys.
In this section we have learned how to use Access to create a database. Some of the important basics covered are: naming the database and designating its location; creating a new table; working with table fields; understanding data types; understanding field properties; setting table primary keys; and, understanding and creating indexes.