FileMaker Pro 13: The Missing Manual

Introduction

The word “database” can be alarming. It calls to mind images of whirring computers, advanced degrees, and pocket protectors. But databases have been around much longer than computers—a phone book, a cookbook, and an encyclopedia are all databases. In fact, if you look up the word “database” in a dictionary (which is a database, too), you’ll find that a database is just a collection of information, or data.

Ideally, the information in a database is organized so you can find what you’re looking for quickly and easily. For example, a business card file has information about people organized alphabetically by name. You can find any person’s card because you know where in the alphabet to look, even though there may be thousands of cards to look through. Such physical databases have major limitations compared with their digital cousins. What if you want to get a list of all your associates in California? Your card file isn’t organized by state, so you have to flip through every card, one by one, to create a list. Digital databases help you avoid that kind of tedium.

A database program like FileMaker Pro helps you build a database so you can store information and then see that information the way you need to see it. In theory, anyway, a digital database isn’t much different from one collected on business cards. It contains lots of information, like addresses, Zip codes, and phone numbers, and it organizes that info in useful ways (see Figure 1 for an example). But since it’s ...