Access vs. Excel

[jp]

For what purposes or applications does one need to develop
in Access, as opposed to using the simpler tools in
Excel? I know there are some good answers out there, I
just don't know what they are. Thank you for the input!

[Arthur Hucksake]

Access is a very good database program, Excel is a very good spreadsheet.
Never confuse that! If you make a database in Excel, causes all sorts of
trouble when you import into Access.
Trust me...I know
"jp" <cspa...@cs.com> wrote in message
news:060701c2d108$3fe45f70$d7f82ecf@TK2MSFTNGXA14...

[Mike Williams]

> "jp" <cspa...@cs.com> wrote in message
> news:060701c2d108$3fe45f70$d7f82ecf@TK2MSFTNGXA14...
>> For what purposes or applications does one need to develop
>> in Access, as opposed to using the simpler tools in
>> Excel? I know there are some good answers out there, I
>> just don't know what they are. Thank you for the input!

Excel is great for doing things with tables, which is fine for simple
collections of like objects. It's wonderful for ad-hoc tables, that you can
continue to customize without knowing a lot of computer science.

Access allows you to build real-world database applications which require
multiple tables, with often complex relationships between each table. The
learning curve for this is fairly steep.

[Paul Schmitz-Josten]

Mike Williams wrote in <qu12a.70573$Ec4....@rwcrnsc52.ops.asp.att.net>:

>Excel is great for doing things with tables, which is fine for simple
>collections of like objects. It's wonderful for ad-hoc tables, that you can
>continue to customize without knowing a lot of computer science.

Excel is also "great" for spoiling tables, anything from mixing the cells
up irreversly by operators' faults to producing irregular results of simple
"sorting by number" by uncontrollable internal cell formatting.

Whenever more than one sorting operation is done or more than one selective
view of the data is neccessary, I'd prefer a database program like Access.
The consequent advantage is that base data (tables), selected & sorted data
(queries) and data representation (forms and reports) are separate items
(objects) that can be handled and modfied separately.

This begins already with one-table applications like address lists, not to
mention relational databases (e.g. customers and products).

IMHO, Excel is only good for calculation purpose (think of pivot tables).
In the eyes of a teacher of mine its only good purpose are the diagram
features. (He's an Access freak)

Due to the apparently easy handling many people organize databases in Excel
before they realize the related problems. Therefore I'd call this
spreadsheet program the most abused program for databases.

My 0,02 Euro,

Paul