Access 2013 For Dummies

Chapter 12

I Was Just Asking . . . for Answers

In This Chapter

Defining what queries are and what they can do

Posing questions (and getting answers) with filter and sort queries

Asking deep questions with queries

Making query magic with the Query Wizard

You know the old saying, “The only stupid question is the one you didn’t ask.” It’s supposed to mean that if you have a question, ask it — because if you don’t, you’ll be operating in the dark, and that’s far sillier than your question could ever have been. Although you don’t ask “meaning of life” questions of a database, you do pose questions such as, “How many customers in London do we have?” or “What’s the phone number of that guy who works for Acme Explosives?” Either of those questions, if you didn’t ask it, would require you to scroll through rows and rows of data to find the information. (That’s the silly approach, obviously.)

This chapter introduces you to the art of asking questions about the information in your database, using queries. You discover how to use the Query Wizard to pose simple questions, and then you find ...