form letters/lease agreements

S

sammynick

I have just started using Access and was given the task to, somehow, create
letters and leases in this program. They would like to be able to just bring
up the "report" and print it with everything filled out.


PLEASE HELP!!!!!
 
A

Allen Browne

Open the Northwind sample database that installs with Access.

Open the Invoice report. The Invoices query shows how to collect the data
from the various tables, and the report then lays it out like a letter.
 
S

Sprinks

Hi, SammyNick.

This forum is more able to assist you with specific questions, but in
general, to get you started, you will store data in tables, inputted through
forms. You can define reports for the letters and leases that will include
both static text and fields from your tables.

Access is a "relational" database, which means your data will be stored in
several tables, which may have relationships between them, such as
one-to-many or many-to-many. In designing which tables you'll need, think in
terms of "Things" (tables) and "attributes of the thing" (Fields).

Each table should have a unique identifier that unambiguously identifies
each record in the table, known as the Primary Key. The simplest way primary
key is an AutoNumber, for which Access will simply assign a unique value for
each new record. The only fields that should be duplicated between tables
are fields that correspond to another table's primary key, called a foreign
key. For example, a Lease record below has two foreign keys--the PersonID
that identifies which Person record holds the lease, and the PropertyID,
which identifies which property is under lease.

Obviously you will need the name of the property, the address and phone of
the lessor, etc., when you print your report. To tie data from related
tables together, you create a query that joins the tables by the primary
key/foreign key combinations, and include the fields in the query that you
wish to print. The reports will then be based on the query rather than a
single table.

For example, based on what you've given so far, you'll need something like:

People (or Customers, or some other descriptor):
----------------------------------------------------------
PersonID AutoNumber (Primary Key)
FName Text
LName Text
Address Text
City Text
State Text
Zip Text
Phone Text
Email Text
....other person-specific fields

Properties
----------------------
PropertyID AutoNumber (PK)
PropertyName Text
Address
.....other property-specific fields

Leases
------------------
LeaseID AutoNumber (PK)
LessorID Integer (Foreign Key to Persons)
PropertyID Integer (Foreign Key to Properties)
StartDate Date/Time
....other Lease-specific fields

Producing most reports is relatively straight-forward. What's important
first is to define your tables such that they are "normalized". Any good
Access reference will cover Normalization, and a Google search will find many
additional resources. Understanding this topic is in my opinion the most
important step in developing a good application.

Hope that helps.
Sprinks
 
S

sammynick

Thank you. I have started a basic db, but I guess I was getting to good at
setting up reports. I was handed this assignment and I had NO idea even how
to get started with it.
 

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