| Lesson 3 | What you need |
| Objective | Discover what you need to get the most from this course. |
Required Hardware and Software for Microsoft Access
In addition to a Web browser, you will need Microsoft Access 2000 as well as Microsoft Excel 2000. The reason for Excel is that I will be showing you how to import and export data between Access and Excel.
Access should already be installed on your PC, this course does not cover the installation process. You can purchase a copy of this software from our online Software Store . You will be working on a course project called Clients and Consulting Database.
(You will learn more about the course project later in this module.) Part of your learning will also take place in the Northwind database that comes with Access. One last feature you will want to have installed with Access is the Calendar ActiveX control that comes with Access. Install this from Setup if you have not installed Access yet. If you have already installed Access, you may want to reinstall it to use the Calendar ActiveX control.
Optional books
I recommend several books to assist you as you work with Access. One is a
quick reference and gives instructions about how to complete tasks, but does not delve much into why or when you might need to do the task.
The others are more complete references with lots of explanatory text and examples. Each book represents the years 2013 and 2016, you should refer to the version of the book that matches your version of the software. Here are the recommended books:
- Access 2013 Pure SQL
- Access 2019
Course downloads
You will need to download a copy of the Consulting database to work on throughout the course. You will also find an Excel spreadsheet file that you will need to complete the exercises later in this course.
Additional resources
You will find a number of helpful links to Access reference materials on the Help page.
Click the Help button on the toolbar to go to this page.
In the next lesson, we will examine some of the features you can expect to encounter throughout the course.
Consulting Database - Exercise