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Access Cookbook

By Ken Getz, Paul Litwin, Andy Baron
First Edition  February 2002 
Pages: 718
ISBN 10: 0-596-00084-7 | ISBN 13: 9780596000844
starstarstarstarstar (Average of 3 Customer Reviews)

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Book description

Access Cookbook provides solutions to practical user interface and programming problems for the Microsoft Access power user or programmer who is running up against some of the apparent limits of the software. The book contains a comprehensive collection of problems, solutions, and practical examples for Access power users and programmers at all levels, from the relatively inexperienced to the most sophisticated.
Full Description

Access Cookbook contains a comprehensive collection of problems, solutions,and practical examples for the Access power user or programmer who is running up against some of the apparent limits of the Access user interface or of Access application development. The diverse problems and solutions presented here are of interest to Access power users and programmers at all levels, from the relatively inexperienced to the most sophisticated. Each of the book?s 14 chapters focuses on a particular topic area related to the Access environment or Access programming. Within each chapter, individual items follow a standardized format. The authors first pose the problem, and then present its solution. Finally, a discussion follows, which consists of extended analysis of the solution, an insightful examination of how Access works, or interesting programming techniques that are used in the solution but that you can also apply elsewhere. The kinds of problems posed and solved in the book include the following:
  • Specifying query criteria at runtime, rather than at design time
  • Restricting the user to a single row of a form
  • Preventing a report from printing if it has no records
  • Making slow forms run faster
  • Insuring that user interface objects present a uniform, consistent appearance
  • Controlling a printer's paper source programmatically
  • Referencing data from multiple SQL Server databases in a single Access Data Project page
  • Using contact information from an Access database when sending email using Outlook
The accompanying CD-ROM includes Access databases that contain the solutions for all problems presented in the text.

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Cover | Table of Contents | Colophon




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Access Cookbook Review,  September 09 2003
Rating: StarStarStarStarStar
Submitted by Ed Blom   [Respond | View]

This is the book that just gave me the answers I was looking for. I make several program in Access for a long time (about 3 years) and the book gave me the clues that I could use in many applications.

The book is a summery of all kind of solutions to typical problems or shortcommings that a moderate Access-programmer will meet during the development of several application

For me it was the right supplement to book I already own of access




Access Cookbook Review,  August 28 2003
Rating: StarStarStarStarStar
Submitted by Hugh Hemington   [Respond | View]

Typical incomplete tome...

One piece of code that I was looking for referenced another piece of code that was omitted! (acbMakeListTable).

...as I said, typical.

If you've got time to waste, this book is for you.


Access Cookbook Review,  May 22 2002
Rating: StarStarStarStarStar
Submitted by Michael   [Respond | View]

I found the book to be an excellent resource. My only wish was that it was even bigger since the format allows you to open the book to any subject and dive right in. Once you inhale the information you can't help but want more.

As a pseudo-VB programmer (actually an energy analyst that uses databases as a daily job function), I love the approach of this book: Problem, Solution, Discussion. Gets me right to the point and actually brings up other issues worth considering. The style of writing is almost like having a real-life Access guru right in your cubicle giving you the full story. I especially appreciated the orientation of the book where you are encouraged to copy the VB code examples in their entirety and figure them out for yourself later (after reading the solution and discussion of course). Many other books require you to start at chapter 1 and make the proverbial employee's database from scratch. If you skip a chapter to find a meaningful function or section, you generally have to make your database conform to the example in order to work. Not so with this book - it provides concrete examples that are free standing and generally provide more information (due to being self contained) that what is even described in the book. I like that. Lastly, the code examples are excellent for my level of VB.

So, I highly recommend this book - it now stands alongside my Access 97 gigantic reference manual on my desk and I suspect this book will become equally dog eared and worn.

Thanks for a great book.

Michael - 5/22/02

PS - I do have one complaint - the CD contained only Access 2000 examples that took up 63MB of space. Since the CD can hold upwards of 70MB, it would be nice to include the Access 97 code examples as well. Fortunately I downloaded them from your website. Thanks for making the files available.



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Media reviews "a good book with clear code and some interesting suggestions about solutions for a wide range of problems."
--Computer Shopper, Aug 2002

"If you've ever wondered how to create an Access query that uses case-sensitive criteria or how to keep a report from breaking at an inappropriate spot, check out 'Access Cookbook' by Ken Getz, Paul Litwin, and Andy Baron (O'Reilly & Associates, $49.95, ISBN 0-596-00084-7). The authors show you how to overcome these problems--and much more--for Access 97, 2000, and 2002...'Access Cookbook' isn't for the newbie Access user, but if you've worked with Access for a few months and want to improve your Access database's user interface or advance your Access programming skills, this is the book for you. The results are sure to be delicious."
--James E. Powell, The Office Letter, May 13, 2002

"The cookbook style is great for technical books. Not a reference book, but not a tutorial either, an interesting mix of both, which allows the author to present practical solutions without worrying about complete coverage of the domain... The 'Access Cookbook' contains a lot of useful material. And it isn't hidden amongst the dross as in many books about software. The cookbook style is well used to present an extremely high signal to noise ratio for this type of book..If you use Access to create applications then you will certainly find some useful recipes in this book. I suspect you will find many; I've used Access for many things over the years and found some very useful solutions and better ways of doing things I had worked around."
--Sam Holden, Computer Science Undergraduate Society, May 2002

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