Access® 2007 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 like, “How many customers do we have in Arkansas?” 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 out about creating your own simple yet customized queries by using the bizarrely and inaccurately named Advanced Filter/Sort tool. Suffice to say, by the end of this chapter you'll be a veritable quiz master, capable of finding any record or group of records you need.

Don't worry if your first few queries produce odd or unexpected results. Like anything new, queries, and their inherent procedures and concepts, take ...