Information Technology D01D 10

Using Databases – Week 2

Last week, we practised entering information into a database, editing it and creating a simple database of our own. This week, we will look in more detail at how database records can be selected, edited and formatted, and at how the information stored in a database can be sorted and printed.

Viewing and sorting a database

Go onto the social science webpages (www.socialsciencestow.co.uk), click on IT & DTP > IT Int 1 (NQ Care). Towards the bottom of the list of resources on this page you will find a file called ‘colleges database’. Right click on this file and save it to your ‘S’ drive. Ask your tutor if you are not sure how to do this.

Once you have downloaded the database, go into Microsoft Access (start > programs > Microsoft Office > Access) and open the database. Open the table titled ‘colleges’. You should see a table like the one above, although yours will not be highlighted.

Editing the database

The details of all the Further Education colleges in Glasgow have already been entered for you, but the person who typed this database has made a few errors, which you should amend as follows:

1. No telephone number has been provided for Anniesland College – this should be 0141 357 3969.
2. The address of Cardonald College is wrong – it should be 690 Mosspark Drive, not 69.
3. Central College have asked that they be given their full name, Central College of Commerce.
4. There is a typographical error in Glasgow College of Nautical Studies’ address.
5. No post code has been given for Langside College, this should be G42 9LB.

Formatting the table

You may not be able to see all of the records as some of the columns are too narrow. To fix this problem, click in the grey box in the top left corner to highlight the whole table. These grey title boxes go horizontally across the page. First, double click where the grey ‘ID’ box joins the ‘College’ box. The ID column should shrink to fit the numbers in this column. Now do the same with the column between ‘college’ and ‘street’. The ‘college’ column should expand to fit the longest piece of text, in this case, the Glasgow College of Building and Printing. Continue this across the page.

Your table should look like this.

We now want to make a few more changes to the table.

Go to format > font and scroll down to Gill Sans MT. Click on Gill Sans MT and then OK. This changes the font of the whole table.

Clydebank College is outwith the Glasgow City boundaries and should therefore not be included in the table. Click on the grey box to the left of Clydebank College. This should highlight the Clydebank College record. Press delete on the keyboard and click ‘yes’ when asked whether you wish to delete the record.

We also want to add a column to give the names of the Principals of each college. To do this, close the table.

You will now see this menu:

Make sure you have the ‘colleges’ selected and click on ‘design’ to open the table in design view.

Click in the cell below ‘telephone number’. Type in ‘Principal’ and press tab. ‘Text’ should automatically appear in the next box. Now close this table – it will save automatically.

We can enter text directly into the table or via a form. A form has been created for this database so we will use that – click on ‘forms’ and then on colleges.

You should see a form like this one:

Press tab to move through the fields until you get to the field named ‘Principal’.

Enter the names of the college principals as follows:

Anniesland	Ms Linda McTavish
Cardonald	Ms Roz Micklem
Central	Mr Peter Duncan
Building and Printing	Mr Thomas Wilson
Food Technology	Mr D H Leitch
Nautical	Vacant (leave blank)
John Wheatley	Mr Ian Graham
Langside	Mr Graeme Hyslop
North Glasgow	Mr Ronnie Knox
Stow	Mr Robert McGrory

Now close the form (the information will be saved automatically) and open the table. If you are happy with it, go to file > page set up and click on the ‘page’ tab as shown below:

Choose ‘landscape’ instead of portrait and click OK. Now print your table and show it to your tutor.