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Navigating the Access Workspace

In This Chapter

  • Getting started
  • Checking out the tabs, buttons, and menus
  • Using your mouse to get from here to there
  • Letting your fingers do the walking

If you skipped Access 2007 and 2010 and are coming to Access 2013 from the 2003 version, you’re probably surprised by the new interface, which was introduced with Microsoft Office 2007. If you did upgrade to Access (or Office) 2010 when it first came out, then the 2013 interface looks very familiar — and you’ll find much of it to be the same as what you’re accustomed to.

For those to whom the Office 2013 is a big change, take note of the following changes to the interface, which is strikingly different from what you may have used in previous versions:

  • Menus have given way to tabs and buttons arranged in a strip across the top of the screen — known as the Ribbon.
  • Toolbars are no longer made up of distinct 3-D buttons. Instead, there are buttons and graphic examples of formatting, pictures of what the buttons create, and drop-down lists.

For users of Access 2007: Notice the new File tab and resulting panel. Instead of spawning a square menu, the button now displays the panel shown on the right in Figure 2-1, where common tasks such as saving and printing are available. It even looks different than it did in 2010 — so 2010 users will also be surprised at the look of this panel and how it appears onscreen when you click the File tab.

The File tab displays a list of commands plus information about the open database.
Figure 2-1: The File tab displays a list of commands plus information about the open database.

Note that to return to the Home tab, you must click the left-pointing arrow at the top of the File panel. It works like a Back button in a browser window and returns you to the Home tab, or whichever tab you were on when you clicked the File tab.

You also see features in the center and on the sides of the workspace, which change depending on what you’re doing or which button you’ve clicked:

  • If you’re starting a new database, options for doing so appear in the center pane (click New in the red panel on the left).
  • If you’re working with an existing database, clicking Info (as shown in the previous figure) displays a link to “View and edit database properties”, which shows you information about the open database, or to Compact & Repair your database, or to Encrypt the database with a password.
  • Clicking Save, Save As, Print, and Options open dialog boxes through which you can perform those tasks. Options, of course, displays settings you can change to control how Access looks and works.

I won’t go into every possible combination of onscreen features in this chapter — you get to know a lot of them in the subsequent chapters. For now, I’ll show you the basic workspace in three states:

  • When Access first opens up
  • When a new database is being built, either from scratch or when you’ve started with one of Access’s database templates
  • When you’re working on an existing database

As you read through the following sections, you can refer solely to the accompanying figures or, if you want, try to work along with the procedures — you’ll find doing what you see described here boosts your confidence when you’re using Access later, on your own.
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