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Language: en

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Databases 
are all around you.

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Have you ever waited at the doctor's office
while the receptionist punched in your information?

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Or asked a store employee to check their system
for a special item?

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Then you've seen a database in action. The
truth is, they're so useful, you see them

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all the time.

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With Microsoft Access, you can manage your
own database - to suit the needs of your business,

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or maybe the company you work for.

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"But what exactly is a database?"

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Well, it's a collection of information - or
data - that's stored on a computer, allowing

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you to enter, access, and analyze it in a
way you never could on paper.

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Let's think about that.

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Before computers, what sort of paper records
do you think the doctor's office kept on file?

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Certainly a list of patients and their contact
information also their medical history,

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and a list of past appointments.

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That's how databases work, from the simplest
to the most complex. They're basically a collection

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of lists - not on paper, but on your computer,
where programs like Access make it possible

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to organize your data, make it searchable,
and so much more. Let's take a look.

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Say you're a hard-working amateur baker. You
might decide to keep a database of all the

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cookies you know how to make, and the people
you make them for - your friends and family.

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A simple database, because it only contains
two lists.

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If you were a professional baker, your database
would contain more. You'd have products and

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customers, and other things to keep track
of, like prices, sales units, and a list of

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orders.

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"Does Access actually keep these things in
a big, long list?"

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Not quite. Instead, it uses tables (like the
ones in Excel) to list things in a little

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more detail. Take this example from the amateur
baker's database.

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It lists friends and family, but also important
information like who has a nut allergy in

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the rest of the table.

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So. If a database is essentially a collection
of lists stored in tables - and you can build

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tables in Excel - why Access? Why do you need
a database at all? Let's compare.

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While Excel is great at storing and organizing
numbers, Access is better at analyzing and

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connecting other types of data;

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for example, names and descriptions, or your
friends and their favorite cookies.

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The databases you'll be working with in Access
can actually understand how different lists

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and their contents relate to one another.
We call this a relational database - for its

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ability to understand relationships - and
it's really what sets Access apart.

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Let's think about what that means while we
go back to our amateur baker's database, and

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build a third list to keep track of batches
of cookies and who they're for.

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It's easy to see the relationship here - all
I did was pull Dwane from this list, and Shortbread

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from here.

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Access can see and use that relationship too,
but Excel can't.

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All of these things are completely unrelated
as far as Excel is concerned.

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That means you wouldn't be able to pull from
one list to another. Eventually, you'd find

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yourself typing the same thing over and over,
every time you needed to refer to Dwane or

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your shortbread recipe, or Dad and chocolate
chip.

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In short, Access thinks more like you.

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It recognizes that the items in these three
lists are connected. That makes entering,

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searching, and analyzing data so much easier
- whether you have two lists or twenty.

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Less to type, less to keep track of.

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Even the most complicated tasks can be made
simple and user-friendly once you understand

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how Access and databases work.