Create an Address Book in Microsoft Access

At the end of this session you will be able to:

Make a table for your data Make a form for easy entry of data Make mailing labels from your data Query your data by zip code Perform a mail merge with Word using your data

Create a Table We are going to create a very simple database to use for creating mailing labels and performing a mail merge. The core of all databases are the tables. A table is a location to store your data. Since you will use a form to enter your data, queries to retrieve your data, and reports to print your data, you do not need to worry about formatting or sorting a table. However, you do need to identify each cell of the table and its properties.

1. Open Access 2. Choose Blank Access Database 3. Choose where you

want to save your file (in this case the 3 ½ Floppy Drive) and give the database a name: Address Book

4. Under objects select TABLE and choose Create table in Design view by double clicking on it.

5. A blank sheet for naming your fields appears. It is a good idea to always have a unique number to identify each record in a field. This especially becomes important when you are going to have several tables connected by links. This unique number is called a primary key. It could be an automatic number, our Unique ID numbers, a program number, etc. as long as NO OTHER ITEM can be identified by that number.

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6. To set our primary key type AutoNumber under Field

Name 7. Under Data Type use the drop down arrow and

choose AutoNumber. This will automatically assign a number to each entry in your database.

8. Highlight the first row by clicking once in the gray box to the left of the Field Name column.

9. Click on the yellow key icon on the toolbar. This sets this field as the primary key.

10. We are going to continue to enter field names and data types as follows:

Title Text First Name Text Last Name Text Address Text City Text State Text Zip Code Text

11. Now let’s save the table. Click on the save icon on the tool bar or go to File>Save As and name the table tblAddresses.

12. Now let’s set up the table with some restrictions and automatic entries to keep our database clean and save us time when entering information.

13. Highlight the City field by clicking the gray box to the left of City in the Field Name column.

14. At the bottom left of the screen is a box with two tabs: General and Lookup. Click in the Default Value box under the General tab and type Durham.

This will mean that Durham will automatically populate this field. If you need to type another city you simply type over the Durham (we’ll do this in our form).

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15. Let’s do the same thing for State. For the default value put NC. 16. Under field size (top of the General tab) we can change 50 to 2. Thus, no matter

what the state, we will always be forced to enter the 2-letter abbreviation. 17. Now let’s work on Zip Code. Here, you can change the field size from 50 to 5

OR you can enter an input mask. NOTE: Not all machines are being set up with the input masks installed. If you need an input mask send a work order to IS.

18. Click in the Input Mask box and then click on the 3 dots that appear next to the box.

19. If you are asked to save the table, answer yes.

20. The input mask wizard will appear.

21. Choose Zip Code from the list.

22. You can test it in the Try It: box. If you make an error typing in the code, you will see the same error message that you would see if you were actually entering the information into the table or form.

23. Hit Next. You don’t need to change anything in the next box, so hit next again.

24. In this box, choose if you want a hyphen to separate the 5 + 4, or if you want all the text to run together. Since we are going to use the table to make mailing labels let’s choose the hyphen.

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25. On the last box, click Finish. 26. We are ready to save our table again by clicking on the save icon. 27. If, at this point, you wanted to type an entry onto your table you can toggle from

design view to datasheet view by clicking the icon at the top left corner of the

toolbar. this icon puts you in datasheet view and this icon puts you in design view.

28. Let’s close the table (File>Close or click the lower x in the right hand corner) and make a form that will make it easier to enter information.

Create a Form

1. Click on Forms under Objects and double click on Create form by using wizard.

2. Here you choose the

table or query you want to use to make the form. We only have one choice –tblAddresses.

3. We also need to say what items we want to appear on our form. We want them all, so click on the double arrow pointing to the right. (you can also move one item over at a time with the single arrow pointing to the right OR remove the AutoNumber with

the single arrow pointing to the left.

4. Click Next. 5. Next, choose a layout for your form. You can click on each choice to get a

‘sample’ view. I personally always stick with Columnar, but this is probably personal preference.

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6. Click Next. 7. Next pick a form style—again

this is personal preference. Click on them all to see your choices.

8. Click Next 9. Finally, you will give your

form a name: frmAddresses.

10. Since we are ready to view

our form, leave the Open the form to view or enter information selected.

11. Click Finish. 12. When your form appears,

notice that Durham and NC are already in their fields.

13. Go ahead and enter your own address. You can use Enter or Tab to move to the next field. If you need to go backwards, use Shift + Tab.

14. Notice that you can type over Durham and NC with different information, if you need to. However, if that information is correct simply Tab through it.

15. You do not need to save after you enter information. Access automatically keeps data entries. You only save changes in the design of the database itself.

16. Go ahead and close this entire database (not just the form). Create Mailing Labels To save data entry time, I have created a database with lots of names and addresses already entered for you.

1. From your floppy disk open the database called ClassMail 2. Notice that we have a table named tblAddresses and a form named

frmAddresses

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3. Now we are going to create a REPORT of mailing labels for the tblAddresses table.

4. Select Reports under Objects and then click on the button that says New.

5. In the New Report box choose Label

Wizard and in the drop down box choose tblAddresses as the table where the data is to create the labels.

6. The label wizard will appear. 7. Make any needed changes and

choose Next.

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Make sure English is picked.

Choose your label.

Avery labels are the most common.

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8. On the next screen choose the font, font size, font weight, and font color. 9. Click Next. 10. Using the arrow

pointing to the right, select each item you want to print on your label. REMEMBER, you have to insert spaces and punctuation. Access does not assume where you want spaces, commas, enters, etc. to go.

11. When you are done, it should look like the Prototype label above. 12. Click Next.

13. The next screen allows you to sort your labels by a certain field. Most often, we would want to sort by zip code. This helps the post office deliver our mail sooner—especially if it is bulk mail!

14. On the final screen you can click FINISH and a print preview of your labels will

appear. 15. To print the labels, put the label sheets in your printer and click the printer icon

(or go to File> Print) at the top left of your screen. Create a Query Suppose you want to print labels only for the 27704 zip codes. You can create a query!

1. Under Objects select Query and double click on Create Query by using Wizard 2. In the first step select all the items except the AutoNumber (remember, you can

choose them one at a time with the single arrow or select all with the double arrow and the move AutoNumber back)

3. Click Next

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4. At this step you can create the table you want to use for your query. We only have one table, and it is already selected. Change the name to qry27704.

5. Check the button to modify the query design.

6. In the design view of the query you can set Criteria. In this case we want to see

only the addresses with at 27704* zip code. We are doing this because some of our zip codes have the +4 and some do not. The * is a wild card (just like in SAP/R3).

7. Type 27704*in the Zip Code column and Criteria Row (it will change to Like “27704*” after you hit enter)

8. Use the red exclamation point on your tool bar to run your query (see the results).

Now, you can run a new label report using this query and only print labels for 27704. Give it a try! Some notes about setting criteria:

If you type criteria on the same row it is like saying AND. For instance, the query below reads Who are all the people who are Mr.s AND who live in a 27704 zip code?

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If you type criteria in different rows, it is like saying OR. For instance, the query below reads Who are all the people named Henderson OR who live in 27704?

Here are some examples of ways to specify criteria

= Equal to

<> Not equal to > Greater than < Less than

>= Greater than or equal to <= Less than or equal to >K Text that begins with a letter that is greater than

K (ie-L-Z) <>C All words except those starting with C (not equal

to C) sm* Text that begins with sm s*d Text that starts with s and ends with d s?s Three letter text that starts with s and ends with

s [hint

phrase] The query will prompt you to enter the criteria you want when you run the query

Let’s try that last example. 1. Create a query with the following criteria:

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2. Name the query qryPrompt (if you ran through the wizard without changing the name you can rename the query by right clicking on it and choosing Rename).

3. Run the qryPrompt by double clicking on it in the list of queries. 4. When prompted, enter 27705- (you need the dash since we set ours up for zip + 4. 5. View your results.

Note: If you make a report for labels using qryPrompt you will be asked to enter the zip code every time you run that report. Perform a Mail Merge Using an Access database 1. Open the word document ltrMailMerge 2. Go to Tools>Mail Merge 3. In the first step go to Create>Form Letters 4. Select the Active window box since we have our letter open in the active window 5. In step 2 click on Get Data and Choose Open Data

Source 6. Browse to where your Access Database is saved

(for class the 3 ½ floppy drive). Be sure to change the Files of type: to MS Access Databases or All Files, otherwise, you won’t see your database.

7. Highlight the database and click OK 8. Next you will see a box that will let you choose the

table or query for your mail merge. We are going to use the table tblAddresses.

9. Click on the

Edit Main Document button.

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10. It is now time to insert your merge fields. This is a layout for where you want the names and addresses to go. Put them exactly where you want them to appear in your letters. You must insert all spaces and punctuation yourself.

It should look like this when finished:

Go here to insert merge fields.

11. Go to Tools>Mail Merge and in Step 3 click Merge. 12. On the box that appears, click Merge again. 13. View and /or print your letters.

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