Chapter 2
In This Chapter
Getting started
Checking out the tabs, buttons, and menus
Using your mouse to get from here to there
Letting your fingers do the walking
If you skipped Access 2007, 2010, and 2013 and are coming to Access 2016 from the 2003 version, you’re probably surprised by the new interface, which was introduced with Microsoft Office 2007. If you did upgrade to Access (or Office) 2007, 2010, or 2013, then the 2016 interface looks very familiar — and you’ll find much of it to be the same as what you’re accustomed to.
For those to whom the Office 2016 interface is a big change, take note of the following changes to the interface, which are strikingly different from what you may have used in previous versions:
For users of Access 2007: Notice the new File tab and resulting panel. Instead of spawning a square menu, the button now displays the panel shown on the left in Figure 2-1, where common tasks such as saving and printing are available. It even looks different than it did in 2010 and 2013 — so users of those two versions will also be surprised at the look of this panel and how it appears onscreen when you click the File tab.
You also see features in the center and on the sides of the workspace, which change depending on what you’re doing or which button you’ve clicked:
I won’t go into every possible combination of onscreen features in this chapter — you get to know a lot of them in subsequent chapters. For now, I’ll show you the basic workspace in three states:
As you read through the following sections, you can refer solely to the accompanying figures or, if you want, try to work along with the procedures — you’ll find doing what you see described here boosts your confidence when you’re using Access later, on your own.
So you’re ready to dive in. Well done, you! It’s easy to start Access. You can start the application in multiple ways, accommodating nearly any situation you’re in. (Chapter 1 discusses most of them.) Whether you’re starting Access to view and edit an existing Access database (which gives you what you see in Figure 2-2) or are about to create your own (which opens the application and displays the list of Recent databases and template icons, shown in Figure 2-3), you can get to the tools you need right away. Figure 2-2 shows an existing database open to one of its tables; its other components are listed on the left side of the workspace.
You can open an existing database by double-clicking it by name in the Explorer window or from an icon on your Desktop; you can start Access from the Start menu in Windows 7 or the Start screen in Windows 8.1, and then pick which existing database you want to work with; you can start a new, blank database from scratch; or you can start out with one of the Access templates.
Figure 2-3 shows the various template icons displayed when you choose New from the left-hand panel.
If you opened Access by using the Start menu or Start screen or a Desktop/Taskbar icon and now you want to open an existing database, you can use the Open command in the panel on the left (see Figure 2-4). This allows you to open either a recently used database or browse for one you haven’t opened in a while. The Open command’s list of options includes
When you use the Recent list, clicking any one of the Recent Databases listed opens that sucker right up, displaying its parts on the panel on the left side of the workspace.
So that’s it, really — any way you want to get started is available either by opening the Access application from the Start menu (Windows 7) or Start screen (Windows 8/8.1) or an application icon, or by clicking the File tab after you’ve got a database open.
After you get to working, however, it’s time to use the onscreen tools that don’t appear until you open a database. Read on for a whirlwind tour of the Access workspace, including views and explanations of all the major bells, whistles, and buttons.
When you open a database — be it an existing one or one you’re just starting from a blank database or a template — the workspace changes, offering the Ribbon and its tabs shown in Figure 2-5 (Home, Create, External Data, and Database Tools). These tabs are not to be confused with the database components’ tabs, which appear in the center of the workspace for whichever tables, reports, queries, or forms you’ve chosen to open from the list on the left.
When the Ribbon tabs first appear, many of their buttons are dimmed — because they don’t become available until you’re doing something that warrants their use. For example, if you haven’t opened any tables, forms, reports, or queries in your open database, the tools for editing or formatting your database will appear on the tabs, but they’ll be dimmed, which indicates that they’re unavailable. Tools for creating new components are available on the Create tab, but anything that works with existing data will be dimmed.
After you open a table, report, query, or form, the tools for that table, report, query, or form become available. Displaying a form, for example, adds the Form Layout Tools group to the main set of five tabs, as shown in Figure 2-6.
To move from one tab on the Ribbon to another, simply click the tab’s name. It’s easy to see which tab is currently open — as shown in Figure 2-7, the Create tab is bright, and you can see all its buttons. When you mouse over another tab, its name turns dark red (notice the Database Tools tab in the figure); the active tab remains bright, though, until you click a new one, making that the active tab.
Access buttons come in two varieties:
Drop-down list buttons are accompanied by a small, down-pointing triangle, appearing to the button’s right. When you click the triangle, a list of options appears, as shown in Figure 2-8.
If you’re fresh from using a pre-2007 version of Office (XP and previous), you’ll be relieved to see a File tab. Office 2007 users lost that familiar word in that version’s interface, replaced then by an Office button, with no comforting word “File” on it. The word File came back in 2010, however, displaying Backstage view, for opening files, saving files, starting new files, printing, and customizing Access through the Options command. The File tab remains in Access 2016, and is shown in Figure 2-10.
When you’re in a database and click the File tab, you’re taken to the Info display, showing information about the open database.
Depending on what’s going on within the workspace — that is, what you’ve just done as you edit your table, report, query, or form, or which button you’ve clicked on one of the Ribbon tabs — Access offers relevant onscreen tools and panels. As an example of this context-sensitive feature, if you open a table and click the Report button on the Create tab (see the Reports section of the Create tab), not only does a report appear, but you also get new tabs — Design (shown in Figure 2-11), Arrange, Format, and Page Setup, under the heading “Report Design Tools”.
To find out more about reporting, including the capability to group, sort, and total your data, see Chapters 18 through 20.
As you work with Access, you’ll get a feel for what’s going to appear when you do certain things. Things appear and disappear as you work because Access offers you just what you need for the task you’re performing or feature you’re using.
Any good application provides some capability for the user to customize the workspace — from adding and rearranging buttons on the toolbar to dragging toolbars and panes around to optimize the layout.
Access is certainly a good software application, so it does what any good application does: It allows you to customize the workspace. You can move the Quick Access Toolbar, you can add buttons from the main tabs to the Quick Access Toolbar, you can resize the Ribbon, you can tweak the status bar, and you can decide how (or if) your ScreenTips are displayed as you mouse over the tools.
There’s no need to do any customization, really — the default settings for toolbar locations, button combinations, and onscreen help are designed with the average or most common user in mind, and they’re pretty good. On the other hand, you may just want to tweak things to feel at home. (Think of the times you’ve fluffed the pillows on the couch before lying down — they may not have needed it, but you want to make your mark on your environment, right? Right.)
For the position of the Quick Access Toolbar, you have two choices:
To move the Quick Access Toolbar, simply right-click it and choose Show Quick Access Toolbar Below the Ribbon. Figure 2-12 shows the pop-up menu with this command available. Note that if you click the down-pointing triangle at the right end of the Quick Access Toolbar, the command is Show Below the Ribbon.
When you place the Quick Access Toolbar below the Ribbon, you’ll notice that the same command (viewed by right-clicking the toolbar in its new location) is now Show Quick Access Toolbar Above the Ribbon. So it toggles like that, switching from Above to Below, depending on its current location.
Speaking of the Quick Access Toolbar and all the ways you can access commands for customizing it, try this to add commands:
With any database open (so that the Ribbon tabs are displayed), right-click any of the buttons on any of the tabs.
You can also right-click the Quick Access Toolbar or any Ribbon tab.
Choose Customize Quick Access Toolbar (or More Commands, if you’re already looking at the Quick Access Toolbar’s menu from 2-12).
The Access Options dialog box opens (shown in Figure 2-13), with its Customization options displayed.
Click the Choose Commands From drop-down list and choose a command category.
A list of Popular Commands appears by default.
From any (or each) category, choose the commands you want to see at all times in the Quick Access Toolbar by clicking them one at a time and then clicking the Add button.
As you click the Add button, the command you choose is added to the list on the right. Note that you have up- and down-pointing triangles on the right side of the list of commands you’ve added — with one of the commands you’ve chosen to add selected, use them to reorder the list, which rearranges the left-to-right order in which they’ll appear on the toolbar.
Continue selecting categories and commands on the left and using the Add button to add them to the list on the right.
Not all commands will be usable at all the times that the Quick Access Toolbar is displayed. For example, if you choose to place the Filter button from the Home tab on the Quick Access Toolbar, the button won’t be available until and unless a table or set of query results is open.
When you’ve added all the commands you want to add, click OK to add them and close the dialog box.
When you click OK, the changes to the Quick Access Toolbar are applied. The toolbar’s space on the top of the workspace grows to accommodate all the new buttons, as shown in Figure 2-14.
Why, then, would you use the Access Options dialog box if a simple right-click takes care of business? Because it gives you the ability to select buttons from all the various tabs in one place — no need to go hunting on the tabs for the buttons you want to add. But when there’s just one you want and you can see it at the time, the right-click method can’t be beat.
Want to remove a command from the Quick Access Toolbar? It’s easy:
Choose Remove from Quick Access Toolbar from the pop-up menu (see Figure 2-15).
Voilà! It’s gone.
Because the button remains on the tab where it originally lived, it’s not lost — it’s just not taking up space at the top of the Access workspace.
Need more elbow room? If you need to spread out and want more workspace, you can make the Ribbon smaller, reducing it to just a strip of the tab titles (whichever tabs are in place at the time you choose to minimize the Ribbon). When it’s minimized, you can bring it back to full size with minimum fuss.
To minimize the Ribbon, follow these steps:
Right-click anywhere on the Ribbon.
A pop-up menu appears. Note that you can right-click a button, a Ribbon tab, or a section name (such as “Reports” on the Create tab, or “Font” on the Home tab) and the appropriate pop-up menu will appear.
Choose Collapse the Ribbon.
The Ribbon is reduced to a long bar with just the tab titles on it, as shown in Figure 2-16.
To bring the Ribbon back to its full glory, right-click the reduced Ribbon and then choose Collapse the Ribbon.
Note that the command is now checked, indicating that the Ribbon is currently minimized. Performing this step — reselecting the command — toggles this setting off, and the Ribbon returns to full size.
ScreenTips are the little names and brief descriptions of onscreen tools that appear when you put your mouse pointer over buttons, commands, menus, and many of the other pieces of the Access workspace.
Not all onscreen features have ScreenTips, but for anything you can click to make something happen — as when a dialog box opens, Access performs some task for you, or something is created — these typically have associated ScreenTips that you can choose to view or not view. If you choose to view them, you can choose to see very brief or more elaborate tips.
To tinker with Access’s ScreenTips settings, follow these steps:
Click the File tab.
The File menu (the red panel on the far left) and the Info view appear on the workspace, as shown in Figure 2-17.
Click the Options command, near the bottom of the menu.
The Access Options dialog box appears onscreen.
From the list on the left side of the Access Options dialog box, select General.
The options in the dialog box change to show other options related to ScreenTips, file formats and folders, and how your name and initials are stored, as shown in Figure 2-18.
Access, like all Windows applications, is meant to be used with the mouse. The mouse is assumed to be your main way of communicating with the software — clicking Ribbon tabs, buttons, and drop-down lists, and making choices in dialog boxes to use things like the Report Wizard and the Access Options dialog box discussed in the previous sections of this chapter.
You can left-click to make standard choices from onscreen tools and right-click to access pop-up menus — also known as context-sensitive menus because the menu choices vary depending on what was right-clicked. If you right-click a Ribbon tab or button, you get choices for customizing toolbars and buttons. If you right-click a database component tab (say, the Table tab while that table is open), you get choices related to the table.
If you like to use the keyboard as much as possible when you’re working with software, Access makes it somewhat easy to do that. I say somewhat because you need to use a special key in order to make the rest of the keyboard work as a commander.
When you want to switch tabs and issue commands with the keyboard (rather than with the mouse), press the Alt key. As shown in Figure 2-20, pressing Alt causes numbers and letters to appear in small squares on the Quick Access Toolbar and the Ribbon’s tabs. When the numbers and letters are visible, you can press one of those characters on your keyboard to issue a command (such as pressing 1 to Save) or to switch to a tab (such as pressing C to get to the Create tab).
When you’re on a tab (but only if you press its letter key to activate it), the individual buttons on that tab have their own keyboard shortcuts displayed. Instead of single numbers or letters, however, now you’re looking at pressing key combinations, such as F + Z (displayed as FZ onscreen) to activate the Form Wizard. Figure 2-21 shows the keyboard shortcuts for the Create tab.