Computer Learning Zone

Today's TechHelp tutorial from Access Learning Zone is all about managing field names when importing data into Microsoft Access from Excel or a text file. I am your instructor, Richard Rost. Often, the field names in imported data can cause issues, such as errors indicating that an item is not found in a collection. Today, we'll discuss how to handle these situations.

A member recently encountered error 3265 while import...

Today's TechHelp tutorial from Access Learning Zone focuses on tracking employee training and certifications using Microsoft Access. I'm your instructor, Richard Rost, and in response to frequent questions about this topic, I've decided to guide you through creating a comprehensive database system from scratch. This will allow you to effectively monitor which courses employees should take, those they have completed and ...

Today's TechHelp tutorial from Access Learning Zone is about automating the import process of data from Excel into Microsoft Access, specifically when dealing with spreadsheets that contain extraneous information. I'm your instructor, Richard Rost. We'll address situations where Excel sheets might have unnecessary rows at the top or bottom, which can complicate the import process.

This topic arises from a question ...

Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and it's a time to honor one of the most inspiring leaders in history. Dr. King's work for civil rights changed the course of our country forever. He fought tirelessly for equality and justice, using nonviolence to bring people together and challenge unfair laws.

Most of us know his famous "I Have a Dream" speech, where he spoke about his vision of a world where people are...

Today's TechHelp tutorial from Access Learning Zone will focus on using nested if functions in Microsoft Access. I'll explain how to use them to categorize customer spending into three levels: high, medium, and low. A single standard if function can only handle two conditions, so we'll use nested if functions to manage three.

Imagine you're working to categorize customers based on their total spending. If they&...

Today's TechHelp tutorial from Access Learning Zone focuses on enhancing the speed of loading forms in Microsoft Access, a common issue when you have a form bogged down by extensive data or complex queries and functions. This particular lesson arose from a question posed by a member who encountered sluggishness in a form used to view quarterly sales summaries. The main culprit seemed to be the intensive calculations carried out wit...

Today's TechHelp tutorial from Access Learning Zone will guide you through the process of importing a specific range of cells from an Excel sheet into your Microsoft Access database. This lesson addresses a common question from users: how can I import a specific range of cells from an Excel workbook into Access?

We'll tackle this with a two-part lesson. First, we'll explore the expert method, which lies between beginner and develo...

Today's TechHelp tutorial from Access Learning Zone explores a significant advancement in Chat GPT and AI technology. The introduction of the Canvas feature is a breakthrough for tasks like document editing and code writing. If you're accustomed to creating code, especially VBA programming in Microsoft Access, this feature could significantly enhance your workflow.

In previous experiences with Chat GPT, a frequent frustration was ...

Today's TechHelp tutorial from Access Learning Zone focuses on navigating forms and subforms in Microsoft Access. If you're working with forms, you may have experienced issues with tabbing through different sections such as headers and footers. The tab order might not always be intuitive, especially if a subform is involved. Our discussion today will cover how to effectively navigate these sections and how to set the focus on the f...

Today's TechHelp tutorial from Access Learning Zone will address a common question I receive frequently, despite having covered it in past lessons. People often ask how to copy the billing address to the shipping address in Microsoft Access. We'll be creating a button to facilitate this action. It's relatively simple, and I'll demonstrate two approaches. The first is what I call the "expert" method, avoiding programming by using a ...

Today's TechHelp tutorial from Access Learning Zone addresses a common request from users: how to enable a button to perform an alternate action when the shift key is held down during a click. Imagine having an invoice button. Normally, clicking it shows a print preview, but if you hold the shift key and click, it sends the document directly to the printer. This dual functionality is what we'll explore today.

This query comes from...

Today's TechHelp tutorial from Access Learning Zone focuses on how to trap form error messages in Microsoft Access to provide more user-friendly notifications.

Imagine your users encountering a message like, "The changes you requested to the table were not successful because they would create duplicate values in the index primary key relationship." That's confusing, right? Or sometimes, they might just see an error code like "Erro...

Today's TechHelp tutorial from Access Learning Zone covers editing linked Excel data. Imagine you have an Excel spreadsheet linked to your Access database, but you can't edit it. We'll explore a workaround to make it editable.

Keith from Germantown, one of my platinum members, uses Excel for data entry and managing spreadsheets at his office. He handles reporting and financial statements, frequently importing data into Access. How...

Today's TechHelp tutorial from Access Learning Zone addresses a common issue with scroll wheels and continuous forms in Microsoft Access. Specifically, we'll discuss how to prevent the mouse scroll wheel from moving through records while you're in a notes field situated in the form footer.

Lindsay from Maplewood, Minnesota, one of our platinum members, brought up this concern. She has a continuous form for her customer list and ad...

Today's TechHelp tutorial from Access Learning Zone addresses a common issue when using arrow keys to navigate through continuous forms in Microsoft Access. Normally, you can use these keys to move up, down, left, and right between different records. However, there might be instances when you do not want this behavior, such as when editing a long text box.

This question comes from Dylan in Lombard, Illinois, who is one of my plati...

Today's TechHelp tutorial from Access Learning Zone addresses the common "#Name?" error you might encounter when your date criteria don't work in Microsoft Access Calculated Fields. Riley from Lake Forest, Illinois, one of our platinum members, reached out with a question about this issue. He said, "I'm trying to make a calculated field on my customer form to sum up all of their orders in the past year using DSum, but I keep gettin...

Today's TechHelp tutorial from Access Learning Zone covers how to display either a person's name, a company name, or both conditionally in your Microsoft Access database.

Marcellino from Hefsabud, Georgia, one of our silver members, has asked a great question. In his table, he stores fields for company name, first name, and last name. Sometimes, he has all three, but other times he only has a company name or a person's name. He wa...

Today's TechHelp tutorial from Access Learning Zone focuses on addressing various questions that don't require an entire video on their own. This is episode 20 of our Quick Queries series, where I compile your frequently asked questions into one comprehensive session. Let's get started.

A common inquiry I receive is about my aversion to the lookup wizard and lookup fields in tables. The main reason is that using lookup fields in a...

What is Microsoft Access & What Do You Use It For?

You've probably heard of Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, but you might not know what Microsoft Access is. Access is a database application. It's designed for storing large amounts of data, and for making it easy to automate the things you do on a daily basis. You can track anything you want in Microsoft Access: Customers, Contacts, Orders, Products, Mailings, Finances, C...