Beginner Book

C

Conrad

Hate to say it but it depends. What do you want to do? Do you want to
develope or use Access? There is a difference. How much experience do you
have? If you want to just use Access then yes that's a good choice. If you
want to develope I would start with Access 2003 Developer's Handbook.

Good luck.
 
B

Brendan Reynolds

I haven't read that particular book, but generally the Step by Step books
tend to be good gentle introductions for complete beginners. If you have
more than a passing interest in Access, you'll likely want to move on to one
of the more in-depth books, such as the Inside Out series, after the Step by
Step book, but if you have no previous database experience you might find
the Step by Step book useful as preparation before tackling weightier tomes.

If you have any previous database or programming experience, though, or if
you are a spreadsheet power-user, you may find the Step by Step book a
little too basic.
 
J

John

Conrad:

Thanks for your help. I am a raw beginner with Access but do want to learn
how to use it with the Web. My next step would be to replace (if that is the
right word) Access with SQL. I am fairly proficient with FrontPage and just
wonder if this is the right place to start...
 
J

John Vinson

Is the Access 2003 Step by Step as good a beginner book as any? Thanks!
Click to expand...

There are a lot of books; as noted elsethread, Step by Step is good
for what it does, but may tap out pretty quickly. Learning styles and
backgrounds differ; what might be a terrific book for one person might
be dreadful for another.

If you have a chance to get to a good bookstore it's worth spending an
hour pulling a bunch of Access books off the shelf and leafing through
them. Perhaps try to use the index (a VITAL feature of any such book,
and one of the hardest to do well) to find out how to do some basic
task ("how do I create a combo box and update it with new data?") See
which books work for YOU.

That said... anything by my esteemed colleague John Viescas is going
to be good; his _Access 2003 Inside Out_ is by my elbow as I type.
Cory Sprague is another excellent author. But check out more, there
are many good ones!

John W. Vinson[MVP]
 
J

John

Thanks John. Since I am a raw beginner in Access do you think Access 2003
Inside Out might be a good choice as the book to buy after going through
Access 2003 Step by Step or, is it comprehensive enough to get me started
AND lead me to/through more advanced topics?
 
J

John Vinson

Thanks John. Since I am a raw beginner in Access do you think Access 2003
Inside Out might be a good choice as the book to buy after going through
Access 2003 Step by Step or, is it comprehensive enough to get me started
AND lead me to/through more advanced topics?
Click to expand...

Look at it yourself if you have a chance - I like it a lot, but I'm me
and you're you! If you can't easily get to a store that has it, I
don't think you'll go far wrong ordering a copy though.

If you want to get seriously into Access, you cannot do better than
the two-volume massive _Access 2002 Developer's Handbook_ published by
Sybex. But it is by NO means an introductory book or a tutorial.

John W. Vinson[MVP]
 
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