Access® 2010 Bible

Chapter 2. Creating Access Tables

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Introducing Microsoft Access

• Opening a new database

• Getting acquainted with the Access environment

• Adding tables to a database

• Creating a new table

• Modifying the design of a table

• Working with field properties

• Specifying the primary key

• Adding indexes

• Documenting a table's design

• Saving a new table

• Working with tables

• Adding data to a table

• Using attachment fields

In this chapter, you learn how to create a new Access database and its tables. You establish the database container to hold your tables, forms, queries, reports, and code that you build as you learn Access. Finally, you create the actual tables used by the Collectible Mini Cars database.

Note

This chapter uses the examples in the database named Chapter02.accdb. If you haven't yet copied this file from the book's CD, please do so now.

Getting Started with Access

As you open Access 2010, the default startup screen, called the Backstage, is revealed (see Figure 2.1). I'll examine the Backstage in more detail later in this chapter, but you should understand the major components of the user interface as you get started using Access 2010. Even experienced Access developers are surprised at how different Access 2010 looks from previous versions.

Each time you open Access, the welcome screen may or may not look different, depending on whether you've elected to have Office Online periodically update the user interface. In an effort to provide a high level of support for Microsoft Office users, Microsoft ...