Access or Excel

[Michelle]

I work for agency that runs weekly classes at 4 different locations for
people arrested for dui. Each week is a new class of students for each
location. We create a roster for each class in Excel that is printed out for
use by the counselors. The roster contains a lot of detailed info about each
student. We desparately need a database of all our students. I want to
create a database that will automatically create these weekly rosters as we
update the database. What is the best program for this - Excel or Access?
My Excel skills are above average. My Access skills are zero, but I am a
quick study. We are using Windows XP at my office so the versions of these
programs would be whatever came with XP. Thank you.

 

[NetworkTrade]

definitely Access

Excel excels in math processes....doesn't sound like you need a spread
sheet....

finding and reporting data is the database's purpose...

 

[John W. Vinson]

I work for agency that runs weekly classes at 4 different locations for
people arrested for dui. Each week is a new class of students for each
location. We create a roster for each class in Excel that is printed out for
use by the counselors. The roster contains a lot of detailed info about each
student. We desparately need a database of all our students. I want to
create a database that will automatically create these weekly rosters as we
update the database. What is the best program for this - Excel or Access?
My Excel skills are above average. My Access skills are zero, but I am a
quick study. We are using Windows XP at my office so the versions of these
programs would be whatever came with XP. Thank you.

Access comes with Office XP Pro - it does NOT come with Windows, or even with
the basic Office package.

Access would indeed be a preferable tool; you can do some sort of database-ish
things in Excel (and some spreadsheetish things in Access for that matter),
but just because you can drive nails with a crescent wrench doesn't mean it's
a good hammer!

Access does have a STEEP learning curve, primarily getting your head around
the concept of relational tables. It's great when you're there but it's a lot
more work than learning basic Excel. See some of the resources at

Jeff Conrad's resources page:
http://www.accessmvp.com/JConrad/accessjunkie/resources.html

The Access Web resources page:
http://www.mvps.org/access/resources/index.html

A free tutorial written by Crystal (MS Access MVP):
http://allenbrowne.com/casu-22.html

MVP Allen Browne's tutorials:
http://allenbrowne.com/links.html#Tutorials

John W. Vinson [MVP]