Table Of Content

01_046732 ffirs.qxp 11/21/06 8:43 AM Page iii Access 2007 Bible ™ Michael R. Groh, Joseph C. Stockman, Gavin Powell, Cary N. Prague, Michael R. Irwin, and Jennifer Reardon 01_046732 ffirs.qxp 11/21/06 8:43 AM Page ii 01_046732 ffirs.qxp 11/21/06 8:43 AM Page i Access 2007 Bible ™ 01_046732 ffirs.qxp 11/21/06 8:43 AM Page ii 01_046732 ffirs.qxp 11/21/06 8:43 AM Page iii Access 2007 Bible ™ Michael R. Groh, Joseph C. Stockman, Gavin Powell, Cary N. Prague, Michael R. Irwin, and Jennifer Reardon 01_046732 ffirs.qxp 11/21/06 8:43 AM Page iv Access™ 2007 Bible Published by Wiley Publishing, Inc. 10475 Crosspoint Boulevard Indianapolis, IN 46256 www.wiley.com Copyright © 2007 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana Published simultaneously in Canada Library of Congress Control Number: 2006936763 ISBN-13: 978-0-470-04673-9 ISBN-10: 0-470-04673-2 Manufactured in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 1B/RT/RS/QW/IN No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except as permitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 646-8600. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Legal Department, Wiley Publishing, Inc., 10475 Crosspoint Blvd., Indianapolis, IN 46256, (317) 572-3447, fax (317) 572-4355, or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions. LIMIT OF LIABILITY/DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY: THE PUBLISHER AND THE AUTHOR MAKE NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES WITH RESPECT TO THE ACCURACY OR COMPLETENESS OF THE CONTENTS OF THIS WORK AND SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION WARRANTIES OF FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. NO WARRANTY MAY BE CREATED OR EXTENDED BY SALES OR PROMOTIONAL MATERIALS. THE ADVICE AND STRATEGIES CONTAINED HEREIN MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR EVERY SITUATION. THIS WORK IS SOLD WITH THE UNDERSTANDING THAT THE PUBLISHER IS NOT ENGAGED IN RENDERING LEGAL, ACCOUNTING, OR OTHER PROFESSIONAL SERVICES. IF PROFESSIONAL ASSISTANCE IS REQUIRED, THE SERVICES OF A COMPETENT PROFESSIONAL PERSON SHOULD BE SOUGHT. NEITHER THE PUBLISHER NOR THE AUTHOR SHALL BE LIABLE FOR DAMAGES ARISING HEREFROM. THE FACT THAT AN ORGANIZATION OR WEBSITE IS REFERRED TO IN THIS WORK AS A CITATION AND/OR A POTENTIAL SOURCE OF FURTHER INFORMATION DOES NOT MEAN THAT THE AUTHOR OR THE PUBLISHER ENDORSES THE INFORMATION THE ORGANIZATION OR WEBSITE MAY PROVIDE OR RECOMMENDATIONS IT MAY MAKE. FURTHER, READERS SHOULD BE AWARE THAT INTERNET WEBSITES LISTED IN THIS WORK MAY HAVE CHANGED OR DISAPPEARED BETWEEN WHEN THIS WORK WAS WRITTEN AND WHEN IT IS READ. For general information on our other products and services or to obtain technical support, please contact our Customer Care Department within the U.S. at (800) 762-2974, outside the U.S. at (317) 572-3993 or fax (317) 572-4002. Trademarks:Wiley, the Wiley logo, and related trade dress are trademarks or registered trademarks of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and/or its affiliates, in the United States and other countries, and may not be used without written permission. Access is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Wiley Publishing, Inc., is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books. 01_046732 ffirs.qxp 11/21/06 8:43 AM Page v About the Authors Michael R. Grohis a well-known author, writer, and consultant specializing in Windows database systems. His company, PC Productivity Solutions, provides information-management applications to companies across the country. Over the last 25 years, Mike has worked with a wide variety of programming languages, operating systems, and computer hardware, ranging from programming a DEC PDP-8A using the Focal interpreted language to building distributed applications under Visual Studio .NET and Microsoft SharePoint. Mike was one of the first people outside of Microsoft to see Access in action. He was among a select group of journalists and publishers invited to preview the Access 1.0 beta (then called Cirrus) at the 1992 Windows World Conference in Chicago. Since then, Mike has been involved in every Microsoft Access beta program, as an insider and as a journalist and reporter documenting the evo- lution of this fascinating product. Mike has authored parts of more than 20 different computer books and is a frequent contributor to computer magazines and journals. Mike has written more than 200 articles and editorials over the last 15 years, mostly for Advisor Media (San Diego, CA). He frequently speaks at computer conferences virtually everywhere in the world, and is technical editor and contributor to periodicals and publications produced by Advisor Media. Mike holds a master’s degree in Clinical Chemistry from the University of Iowa (Iowa City, IA) and an MBA from Northeastern University (Boston, MA). Mike can be reached at [email protected]. Please prefix the e-mail subject line with “AccessBible:” to get past the spam blocker on this account. Joseph C. Stockmanis an independent consultant, software designer, and author who has been using Microsoft Access since its initial release. He has also developed courseware and taught classes in Access and VBA. Joe developed his first application in Access, and then migrated into Visual Basic and Visual Basic .NET, where he specializes in creating applications for the Windows Mobile platform. He worked for several software companies before forming his consulting business in 2002, where he deals with all types of clients including healthcare, financial, government, manu- facturing, and small business. His ability to turn his customers’ wishes into working applications keeps them satisfied. Joe is also writing the fundamentals column for the Advisor Guide to Microsoft Access magazine. Gavin Powell is a computer consultant and a writer, with over 20 years of IT experience and over 10 titles to his credit. He has worked as a programmer, analyst, data modeler, database administrator, and Unix administrator. Gavin is also a semiprofessional musician, songwriter, and recording engineer, playing multiple instruments and writing prolifically. Gavin can be reached by e-mail at [email protected] [email protected]. Cary N. Pragueis an internationally best-selling author and lecturer in the database industry. He owns Database Creations, Inc., the world’s largest Microsoft Access add-on company. Their products 01_046732 ffirs.qxp 11/21/06 8:43 AM Page vi About the Authors include a line of financial software; Business! for Microsoft Office, a mid-range accounting system, POSitively Business! Point of Sale software, the Inventory Barcode manager for mobile data collec- tion, and the Check Writer and General Ledger. Database Creations also produces a line of developer tools including the appBuilder, an application generator for Microsoft Access, the EZ Access Developer Tools for building great user interfaces, appWatcher for maintaining code bases among several developers, and Surgical Strike, the only Patch Manager for Microsoft Access. Cary also owns Database Creations Consulting, LLC., a successful consulting firm specializing in Microsoft Access and SQL Server applications. Local and national clients include many Fortune 100 companies including manufacturers, defense contractors, insurance, health-care, and software industry companies. His client list includes Microsoft, United Technologies, ABB, Smith & Wesson Firearms, Pratt and Whitney Aircraft, ProHealth, OfficeMax, Continental Airlines, and other Fortune 500 companies. Formerly, he has held numerous management positions in corporate information systems, including Director of Managed Care Reporting for MetraHealth, Director of Corporate Finance and Software Productivity at Travelers Insurance where he was responsible for software support for 35,000 end users, and Manager of Information Systems support for Northeast Utilities. He is one of the top best-selling authors in the computer database management market, having written over 40 books that have sold over one million copies on software including Microsoft Access, Borland (Ashton-Tate) dBASE, Paradox, R:Base, Framework, and graphics. Cary’s books include 11 books in the Access Bible series (recently number one on the Ingram Bestselling Database Titles list and in the Amazon.com top 100), Access 97 Secrets, dBASE for Windows Handbook, dBASE IV Programming (winner of the Computer Press Association’s Book of the Year award for Best Software Specific Book), and Everyman’s Database Primer Featuring dBASE IV.He recently completed several books for Access 2003 including Weekend Crash Course in Office Access 2003 Programming. Cary recently sold a product line named eTools for Microsoft Access to MightyWords, a division of FatBrain.com and Barnes and Noble. Cary is certified in Access as a Microsoft Certified Professional and has passed the MOUS test in Access and Word. He is a frequent speaker at seminars and conferences around the country. He is on the exclusive Microsoft Access Insider Advisory Board and makes frequent trips to Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, WA. He has been voted the best speaker by the attendees of several national conferences. Recently, he was a speaker for Microsoft sponsored conferences in New Orleans, Hawaii, Phoenix, Chicago, Toronto, Palm Springs, Boston, and Orlando. He has also spo- ken at Borland’s Database Conference, Digital Consulting’s Database World, Microsoft’s Developer Days, Computerland’s Technomics Conference, COMDEX, and COMPAQ Computer’s Innovate. He was a contributing editor to Access Advisormagazine and has written for the Microsoft Office Developer’sjournal. He is active in local town politics serving on the South Windsor, Connecticut Board of Education, Parks and Recreation Commission, and the Board of Assessment Appeals. Cary holds a master’s degree in computer science from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and an M.B.A and Bachelor of Accounting from the University of Connecticut. He is also a Certified Data Processor. vi 01_046732 ffirs.qxp 11/21/06 8:43 AM Page vii About the Authors Michael R. Irwinis considered one of the leading authorities on automated database and Internet management systems today. He is a noted worldwide lecturer, a winner of national and international awards, best-selling author, and developer of client/server, Internet, Intranet, and PC-based database management systems. Michael has extensive database knowledge, gained by working with the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, D.C. as a developer and analyst for the Information Systems Division for over 20 years and assorted Federal Agencies of the United States Government. Since retiring in June 1992, he runs his own consulting firm, named The Irwin Group, and is principal partner in the company - IT in Asia, LLC, specializing in Internet database integration and emphasizing Client/Server and net solutions. With consulting offices in Cincinnati, Ohio, Bangkok, Thailand, and Manila, Philippines, his companies offer training and development of Internet and database applications. His company has the distinction of being one of the first Microsoft Solution’s Providers (in 1992). His local, national, and international clients include many software companies, manufacturers, government agencies, and international companies. His range of expertise includes database processing and integration between mainframe, minicom- puter, and PC-based database systems, as well as B-2-B and B-2-C integration between back-end databases; he is a leading authority on PC-based databases. He is one of the top best-selling authors in the computer database management market, having authored numerous database books, with several of them consistently on the best-sellers lists. His books, combined, have sold nearly a million copies worldwide. His most recent works include The OOPs Primer(Borland Press), dBASE 5.5 for Windows Programming (Prentice Hall), Microsoft Access 2002 Bible, Microsoft Access 2002 Bible Gold Edition (co-authored), and Working with the Internet.The Access Bibleseries have constantly been number one on the Ingram Best-selling Database Titles list and is consistently in the Amazon.com and Buy.com top 10. He has also written several books on customs and cultures of the countries of Asia (including China, Japan, Thailand, and India). Two of his books have won international acclaim. His books are published in over 24 languages worldwide. He has been a contributing editor and author to many well-known magazines and journals. He is a frequent speaker at seminars and conferences around the world and has been voted the best speaker by the attendees of several international conferences. Michael has developed and markets several add-on software products for the Internet and productivity related applications. Many of his productivity applications can be obtained from several of his Internet sites or on many common download sites. Many of his application and systems are distributed as freeware and careware. He has also developed and distributes several development tools and add-ins for a wide range of developer applications. Jennifer Reardonis considered a leading developer of custom database applications. She has over ten years’ experience developing client/server and PC-based applications. She has accumulated much of her application development experience working as lead developer for Database Creations. She has partnered with Cary Prague developing applications for many Fortune 500 companies. vii