finally the hearts of your access
database is a navigation pane it shows
you what's in the database it makes them
easily accessible for you a Microsoft
Access database is made up of several
components including tables forms
queries and reports these components are
called database objects one or more of
these objects are forms when a database
is created let's take a look at the
navigation pane and see how it works and
then discuss the database objects the
first thing you'll want to know how to
do is work with the navigation pane to
open and close the navigation pane just
click the shutter bar button with the
navigation pane open you'll see one or
more groups you can collapse and expand
a group by simply clicking the down or
up double arrows you can also select the
way in which the objects in the database
are displayed in the navigation pane
just click the drop down arrow here to
see your options you can include the
creation or modified dates or display
objects as icons or lists let's take a
look at tables to open a table just
click the table icon tables are usually
created for specific topics as you can
see here we have a table for our
inventory of books we have columns or
fields of information such as title and
author each row is a record that is
comprised of one or more fields we'll
talk more about fields in another lesson
another database object is called a
query a query lets you find and retrieve
information from one or more tables
based on a set of search conditions you
define by using the fields in
or more tables don't worry we'll look
further into queries in a later lesson
you can also use forms with your
database primarily people use forms to
make data entry to database tables
easier instead of entering data directly
into a table a user can use an easy to
read form the final objects I want to
show you is the report a report is an
effective way to analyze and present
data in a printed format using a
specific layout you have control over
the size and appearance of information
printed on the report just like you do
with Microsoft Word documents we will
also cover forms and reports in a later
lesson now when you're ready to close
any of these objects just notice the
tabs to the rights of the navigation
pane the highlighted tab is the active
tab in this case we only have one and it
can be easily closed by clicking the X
on the right now as I said before if
access looks a little complex to you
right now don't panic because additional
lessons will cover each of these objects
in greater detail