Office 2016 For Dummies

Chapter 18

Creating a Database Report

IN THIS CHAPTER

Creating a report with the Report Wizard

Displaying and printing reports

Modifying the appearance of a report

Erasing a report

Data is useless if you can’t understand what it means, so that’s why Access lets you create reports. A report simply provides a printed version of your data arranged in some useful way.

One report can dig through your data and print a list of your top ten salespeople. Another report may print out the top ten products you sold last year. Reports simply provide a way to make sense of your data and print it so you can examine your data on paper.

Using the Report Wizard

The easiest way to create a report is to use the Report Wizard, which guides you step by step through arranging and selecting which data to print on a report, along with sorting your data at the same time. To use the Report Wizard, follow these steps:

1. Click the Create tab.

2. Click the Report Wizard icon in the Reports group.

   The Report Wizard dialog box appears, as shown in Figure 18-1.

3. Click in the Tables/Queries list box and choose the table or query that contains the data you want to print in a report.
4. Click a field in the Available Fields box and then click the > button. Repeat this step for each additional field you want to display in your report.

5. Click Next.

   Another dialog box appears, asking whether you want to group your data by a specific field, such as by Last Name or Employee Number, as shown in Figure 18-2.

6. Click a field ...