Is anyone any good with them here?

I have two of them on my computer and I can't get them to work no matter what I do.

If anyone can help I can send the files and see if you know what's wrong

Thanks.
Dan

Are you using the correct version of MS Office and file extension?

Yes, I have them working now and have chosen the more suitable of the two.

However, it doesn't quite have everything I need and it is only a trial that allows 20 records to be entered.


It is basically a database for customer and vehicle information including previous work on past appointments for a garage environment.

I can see this giving me some trouble, I know exactly what I want but I'm not sure how to go about it, my experience of access is zilch.

I used to run the customer database in Access for an electronic measuring instrument manufacturer in Totnes in a former life (was it really that long ago? ) May be able to help, maybe not and might have a less limited version.

It was back in the days when Win95 (remember that? You could feed it all in on floppy disks, you had to do a driver installation to make the CD reader work, you had to have at least 16Mb of ram (!) for it to be happy) was new, I suspect the newer versions of Access aren't quite as bug-ridden and ANNOYING as they were back then, but it will still be a learning curve!

If you use an open office it runs all MS extensions as far as I know, (and it's free )
http://www.openoffice.org/why/why_easy.html
Alex, I still have those floppy discs

Ive built Access databases from scratch with a little graphic user interface using macros.
This was a long while back and haven't used it since, I would suggest looking at some tutorials on the internet on how to build from scratch. Its not a difficult program to use but it can be overwhelming to start with.

Dan

I have created and modified flat and relational databases in Access (and before that in dBase). Your requirement for a garage customer database seems very straightforward and I am almost certain that freeware examples will be available on the net (if you search long enough). Starting from scratch seems like a hard way to go if you haven't done it before. If you're intent on creating it as a learning exercise the first thing you need is a data model check here: http://www.databaseanswers.org/data_mod ... /index.htm and here: http://www.databaseanswers.org/data_mod ... /index.htm for examples - then get stuck into the Access tutorials on the net.

Mick

I use Open Office. Mainly for 'word' documents and the occasional spreadsheet. Great program, but I haven't used it for database stuff. And I haven't done any databasing in a long time.

Then tere is that book, "Idiots guide to MS Access"

Which, unless they've re-thought the concept a lot since the original version is a waste of space!

Still fiddling with this, making a "little" progress but I'm certainly further ahead than I was!

That's nice Dan, slog on, that's how we learn isn't it?