Author(s): John L. Viescas
Publisher: MS Press
Year: 2004
ISBN: 0735615136
Language: English
File type: PDF
Pages: 1288
Size (for download): 20 MB


Access is just one part of MS’s overall data management product strategy. Like all good relational databases, it allows you to link related information easily—for example, customer and order data that you enter. But Access also complements other database products because it has several powerful connectivity features. As its name implies, Access can work directly with data from other sources, including many popular PC database programs (such as dBASE and Paradox); with many SQL (structured query language) databases on the desktop, on servers, on minicomputers, or on mainframes; and with data stored on Internet or intranet Web servers.

Access also fully supports MS’s ActiveX technology, so an Access application can be either a client or a server for all the other Office applications, including MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, FrontPage, Publisher, and the new MS OneNote.

Access provides a very sophisticated application development system for the MS Windows operating system. This helps you build applications quickly, whatever the data source. In fact, you can build simple applications by defining forms and reports based on your data and linking them with a few Visual Basic statements; there’s no need to write complex code in the classic programming sense. Because Access uses Visual Basic, you can use the same set of skills with other applications in MS Office or with MS Visual Basic.

MS Access can also act as a direct source of information published on an intranet or the World Wide Web. Data access pages let you quickly create and deploy intranet applications using pages that you create directly from Access much like you would create an Access application form. Data access pages can retrieve and update data stored either in an Access database or in MS SQL Server. MS Access 2003 includes new and enhanced features to allow you to export or import data in XML format (the lingua franca of data stored on the Web) or to directly link to an XML data source on a MS SharePoint Services Web site. You can export data (or subsets of data) stored in a MS Access or SQL Server database to a SharePoint server and then link those files back into your original application.

Excel users. Access users. You're probably among the majority, living in one camp or the other but rarely crossing between the two. Yet Microsoft designed these applications to work together. In this book, you'll discover how Access benefits from Excel's flexible presentation layer and versatile analysis capabilities, while Access's relational database structure and robust querying tools enhance Excel. Once you learn to make the team work, you'll find that your team's productivity is the real winner.

* Move data easily between Excel and Access
* Store Excel data in a structured relational database
* Create Excel PivotTables with Access data
* Report Access data using Excel's presentation layer
* Use VBA, ADO, and SQL to move data from one application to the other
* Save time and increase productivity by automating redundant processes with VBA
* Simplify integration tasks using XML
* Integrate Excel data into other Office applications

Author(s): Duane Birnbaum
Publisher: Thomson
Year: Mar 2005
ISBN: 1592007295
Language: English
Pages: 504
File type: PDF
Size : 6 MB

Visual Basic For Application (VBA for short) is a programming environment designed to work with MS Office applications (Word, Excel, Access and Power Point). components in each application (for example, worksheets or documents) are exposed as objects to the programmer to use and manipulate to a desired end. Almost anything you cand do through the normal use of the Office application can also be automated thourgh programming.

VBA is a complete programming language, but you can't use it outside the application in which it is integrated. This does not mean VBA can be integrated only with Office programs. Any software vendor that decides to implement VBA can include it with their application.

VBA is relatively easy to learn, but to use it in a new application, you must first become familiar with the "object model" of the application. For example, the "Document" and "Dictionary" objects are specific to the Word object mode, whereas the "workbook", "Worksheet" and "Range" objects are specific to the Excel object model. As you proceed through this book, you will see that the Excel Object model is faifly extensive; however, if you are familiar with Excel, you will find that using theese objects is generally straightforward.

This book uses real-world examples to give you a context in which to use the task. This book also includes workshops to help you put together individual tasks into projects. The PowerPoint example files that you need for project tasks are available at www.perspection.com.

Containing 277 business case studies that illustrate nearly every aspect of Excel, this book presents real-life business problems and works them through to their solutions. In addition to exemplary solutions, each case analysis considers alternate approaches and gotchas, and includes a summary of the necessary commands and functions. Excel files that can be downloaded and worked through step-by-step are included for each case This is one of those books that don’t really contain anything new. What they do instead is present things in a way that as you read it you tend to say ‘Of course, that’s the way I can do that.’ For instance, suppose you want to sort a spreadsheet on only the first three digits of an account number. You turn to page 147. It says, ‘Create a new column. Use the LEFT function to populate that column. Sort on the new column.’ It actually show you more instruction on how to do this, but that’s the idea. ‘Of course, you say, how obvious.’ Then why didn’t you think of it first? To make it easier to find what you’re looking for, the book is broken into four sections: The Excel Environment, Calculating with Excel, Wrangling Data, Making Things Look Good. Each section then has a bunch of these ‘hints & tips’ I guess I’d call them. Alternatively there’s a fairly complete index that is organizated alphabetically rather than functionally. I rank this an an excellent intermediate level book. If you don’t know what a spreadsheet does, you need a lower level book. If you want to learn about Macros and VBA, you want a higher level. But regardless of your level, you’ll find at least a few ‘Of course’s.’