Creating databases in Microsoft Access

Nowadays, databases are very widely used in various fields: enterprises, companies, educational institutions, and so on. And working with them allows the program from the Office suite - Microsoft Access, which gives users very ample opportunities to interact with the tables. The skills of working in the program Microsoft Access will be useful to every modern user. In this article we will look at how to create a database in Access. Let's figure it out. Go!

A database is a collection of related information combined in a table. Having dealt with what it is all about, you can proceed directly to the creation.

An example of creating a database with a multi-level list

Having started Microsoft Access, select "New" in the "File" menu. Then click the "New Database" button. On the right side of the window, specify the name of the file and the place where it will be stored. After that, click "Create". You can also use one of the list of templates offered by the utility. In some cases it will be much more convenient to just edit the template than to create everything anew.

How to start creating a database

You will see a table with a single field. Hover over the tab and select "Designer". In the window that appears, you will be prompted to change the name. Now you can start filling in the cells in the "Field Name" column. The next column “Data Type” will be filled in automatically, depending on whether you entered words or numbers. The type of data in each cell can be changed. There are such data types:

  • text;
  • MEMO field (used for descriptions of objects, as it allows to enter a large number of characters, > 255);
  • numerical;
  • date Time;
  • monetary;
  • counter;
  • logical (useful for fields containing “yes” or “no”);
  • OLE object field (allows you to insert multimedia files: photo, video);
  • hyperlink;
  • attachment (used to store multiple files in one field);
  • calculated (allows to calculate the sum, difference, product based on other data from the table);
  • substitution wizard.

In most cases, only “numeric”, “text”, “monetary”, “calculated” and “Date / time” will be useful to you, it is these types of data that are used most often. Below, in the "Field Properties" section, you can see the size of the field. In case you have a textual data type, there will be 255 there. This means that you can enter 255 characters in this cell. Of course, this is too much, so you should reduce the size of the specified field to 30 (you can put any other number, depending on the challenges). This is done so that the database takes up less disk space.

For a different attribute, a different data type, an example in the screenshot.

By selecting the numeric data type, you can set the so-called input mask. It is necessary in order to display the entered numerical values ​​in a certain way. The mask is set using spaces and grids. For example, if your table contains passport numbers, then in order for these numbers to be displayed in the appropriate format, set the mask "#### _ ######". That is 4 characters, then a space and 6 more characters. For phone numbers, you can specify the mask “8 (###) - ### - ## - ##”.

For the date / time type, it is possible to select different display formats in the “Field Properties” section.

Do not forget to save the created table. You can do this by using the key combination Ctrl + S. If during saving a window appears with a warning that the key fields are not set, then click “No”, as you can create them later.

The save key is in the upper left corner.

As you can see, creating databases is a simple process that even a novice user can handle. Write in the comments, did the article help you understand the question, and ask if something of the material presented remains incomprehensible to you.