Teach Yourself Access 97 VISUALLY (Idg's 3-D Visual Series)

By Ruth Maran

Book Overview

Access isn't a household name the way Word and Excel are, but this database component of Microsoft's top-selling Office suite is every bit as powerful and every bit as useful. Now, thanks to the proven visual approach that has rendered technical subjects understandable to millions of Teach Yourself VISUALLYTM and SimplifiedTM readers, you can get up to speed with the latest release of Access -- Access 97 -- quickly and enjoyably. In Teach Yourself Access 97 VISUALLY, full-color illustrations, concise explanations, and step-by-step instructions show you how to create your own databases, build queries to find the information you want efficiently, generate professional-looking reports, and more. Plus, Teach Yourself Access 97 VISUALLY demonstrates how to make the most out of your information and your software by integrating Word and Excel with Access for complete productivity solutions.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0764560263
• ISBN13: 9780764560262
• Release Date: July 1997
• Publisher: Visual
• Length: 303 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.9" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

get a strong foundation in an hour

You won't learn the details of creating a Visual Basic Access database with this book. You will gain a strong foundation and understand database basics and how to use the not very intuitive Access interface in about an hours worth of reading.This book will help open the world of databases to you. Its amazing how much databases can help you organize and automate your job. This book helps to take the mystery away from the word DATABASE and opens the idea up that database creation is not just for your MIS person. After all a database is just a spreadsheet with a face and a lot more possibilities.

The pictures really help.

I have read other books on Access and other computer topics. Teach Yourself Access 97 VISUALLY is by far the best I have read. A picture is worth a thousand words, this book has 500 great pictures to really help you understand. I am looking forward to purchasing other "VISUALLY" books.

This is a great beginner's book.

This book has many colorful pictures, a nice layout and is well organized. Therefore, absorbing its contents is relatively easy. There are occaisional mismatches between the pictures and text but this can be easily overcome by focusing on the text while trying the applicable step on the PC.

A picture is worth a thousand words

This is an excellent beginners' (reference) guide. It isn't written in the usual, classic teaching style, but that's the best part! I find it easier to learn sometimes when something is visualized for me, instead of reading paragraph after boring paragraph, trying to build a mental picture that doesn't always make sense. I like the way it breaks up each technique on how to do a specific task in Access onto its own page. Each page has the title which describes which task it's teaching you, a splendid visual representation of it, and 4-5 step by step instructions that point to specific screen shots so you can follow along and also know what your screen's supposed to look like in the process -- confidence inspiring, I would say. And these graphics and screen shots are very clear, in full color, and are easy to read, unlike the usual hard to read black and white shots you see too often.The only problem with this book is that it isn't very comprehensive or in-depth. But then again, that's the whole point: this is a beginners' book... I would say, more specifically, it's a good beginners' reference guide, because you can go to any task at any time, find the page, and learn how to do it visually. Note that this book doesn't do a spectacular job of connecting ideas and concepts for you as they are all separated onto indivual, self-contained pages. The visuals, however, will help you understand the bigger picture. I would recommend, however, that you purchase another book to supplement this... I bought teach yourself... Access 97 (not one of those Sam's Teach Yourself in 24 hours or 21 days books), by Charles Siegel, MIS Press. It's a fairly compact yet informative guide, only 490 pages, but when you get more advanced, you should buy another book aimed at advanced users anyways. It treats the basics well, though. I like chapter 6 "Relational Databases", which, unlike other books, actually tries to explains the concept of a relational database and its elements, which is important for people who are new to the concept. Also a bargain at $25.In conclusion: despite its minor faults, the outstanding graphics, visuals, and screen shots make this book a must-have. (In fact, I think they should extend this concept to every computing subject, and have advanced guides like this -- after all, the complex topics probably need the visualization help more than the simple topics do.) It's a bargain at that price with full color graphics and high quality paper. 5 stars.