Learn Access Now! Chapter 10 Previous Section in Chapter 11 Chapter 12

Chapter 11: Using Your Data with Word and Excel

(This is section 4 of 4 in this chapter)

Summary

Even though Access does a great job of managing data, it is not good at some other tasks. For those purposes, you use programs such as Word and Excel, which join Access as members of the Microsoft Office family of productivity software. Combining the capabilities of Access and both Word and Excel was the focus of this chapter. Before you move on to Chapter 12, make sure you understand the following key concepts:

Word can use the information in an Access table in a mail merge document. You can use mail merge documents for a variety of purposes including form letters, mailing labels, envelopes, catalogs, and order forms.
To use the Microsoft Word Mail Merge Wizard, you first select the table or query you want to merge with the document, choose Office Links from the Tools menu, and then choose Merge It with MS Word from the submenu.
You can merge Access data with either an existing Word document or a new document.
Once the Word document is displayed on your screen, the Access data is already linked. All you need to do is indicate where the merge fields (Access table or query fields) should be inserted in the document.
After you position the merge fields, there are several ways you can process the Word document. You can print to the printer, create a new document, or save the file to disk.
To output the contents of an entire table or query in Excel format, first select the table or query you want output, choose Office Links from the Tools menu, and then choose Analyze It with MS Excel from the submenu.
To output a portion of a table or query, you select the portion you want output (rows, columns, or selection), choose Office Links from the Tools menu, and then choose Analyze It with MS Excel from the submenu.
You can establish a link between Excel and Access by copying an entire table or query to the Clipboard and then using the Paste Special option from Excel's Edit menu.
You can update links manually by choosing the Links option from Excel's Edit menu and then clicking your mouse on the Update Now button.

In Chapter 12 , you will learn how you can take advantage of the World Wide Web within Access.

Learn Access Now! Chapter 10 Previous Section in Chapter 11 Chapter 12