Category: Microsoft Access

Calling Parameter Queries in Microsoft Access VBA

November 4, 2023April 25, 2024 Andrew Comeau

Microsoft Access parameter queries enable you to pass criteria from outside a query. This article shows how they can be called from VBA.

Microsoft Access, SQL

Editing Excel Worksheets with Microsoft Access

November 2, 2023September 3, 2024 Andrew Comeau

It’s actually possible to populate specific cells in an Excel worksheet with information from your Access database. Here’s how you do it.

Databases, Microsoft Access, Programming

FREE Course – Managing Your Data with MS-Access

January 23, 2023February 18, 2023 Andrew Comeau

In early 2020, I created the online course Managing Your Data with Microsoft Access which showed how to create an entire Access application from start to finish. This course has over 5 1/2 hours of video instructions covering the creation of tables, forms and reports along with specialty topics like printing Dymo labels from Access….

Microsoft Access, Uncategorized

Connecting Microsoft Access to MySQL and SQLite

July 3, 2022June 16, 2025 Andrew Comeau

Update, June 2025 – I’ve updated the Github repository with a version of this project for connecting Microsoft Access to SQLite. In my latest video, I demonstrate how to use Microsoft Access as a front-end for MySQL without having to create a DSN entry on the client machine. Access easily connects to MySQL through an…

Databases, Microsoft Access, MySQL

Filtering Combo Boxes in Microsoft Access

February 1, 2022November 4, 2023 Andrew Comeau

Combo boxes are extremely useful in Microsoft Access and other design environments. They provide a compact control from which your users can access a drop-down menu that enables them to choose from a variety of options. In my applications, combo boxes often pull their rows from lookup tables such as product or customer lists and…

Database Design, Microsoft Access

Customizing Reports in Microsoft Access

May 25, 2021November 4, 2023 Andrew Comeau

In my latest video, I go into more detail about Microsoft Access report settings. This video is also an addition to my tutorial series, Managing Your Data with Microsoft Access which is now free on YouTube. Microsoft Access has always been known for having a great report designer with which you can put together professional…

Database Design, Microsoft Access

Splitting a Database in Microsoft Access

March 23, 2021November 4, 2023 Andrew Comeau

My latest video shows how to split a database in Microsoft Access to separate the data from the user interface and programming elements.

Access can link to data from different file formats including Excel, text files and other Access databases. For multi-user applications, you can have an Access file with just the forms, reports, queries and other user interface elements that links to the data in other files. This is called the “front-end” because it’s the user-facing part of the application. The data files are the “back-end”.

Databases, Microsoft Access, Uncategorized

Online Course – Managing Your Data with Microsoft Access

March 17, 2020January 4, 2023 Andrew Comeau

One of the things I hear about Microsoft Access is that it’s simply too complicated for many people to work with. This is because Access is designed for building database applications that can be used to automate and manage processes. Too few resources approach it from that perspective. This leaves users and students without the…

Database Design, Microsoft Access

Recovering a Corrupted Table in Access With VBA

November 16, 2019December 2, 2019 Andrew Comeau

Recently, a client started experiencing errors, seemingly at random, in the database application I managed for them. The errors immediately started mentioning corruption and then these came through …

Error 3167 – Record is Deleted

Getting everyone out of the system and running a Compact / Repair seemed to help, but then …

“The Microsoft Access database engine cannot find a record in the table … with key matching fields() …

At this point, I decided a rebuild of the database was in order since it hadn’t been done in years. I’d just create a new database file, import everything, test and everything should be resolved.

Then the import process failed on one of the main tables with the following error …

Microsoft Access, Programming, SQL

Should You Keep Using Microsoft Access?

November 11, 2019August 20, 2024 Andrew Comeau

Full Disclosure – I Owe My Career to Access

I’ve been working with Microsoft Access off and on since 1997, just a few years after it was first introduced in ’92. I can realistically say that learning Access made my career in I.T.. I’d had some previous programming and database experience with Borland Paradox and an older DOS title so I had some idea of what I was doing when I decided to automate some of my work with the copy of Access 97 that I.T. had installed on my machine with Office.

I spent the next few years creating Access apps and learning about things like normalization and report design. I started out using Access macros, tentatively started playing with Visual Basic for Applications and then started creating sophisticated Access / VBA apps for other departments and facilities within the company. I started a website in 2000, wrote about Access and offered some samples for download. A few pages of introduction to Access that I wrote for a friend became a series of articles titled “Microsoft Access for Beginners” which brought a lot of web traffic and then became a book that didn’t sell very well but was appreciated by those who read it. In 2003, I took on my first Access client as an independent programmer. In 2005, the expertise I demonstrated with Access helped me get my first full-time programming job with Access and other languages. It’s continued from there.

Databases, Microsoft Access, Software