Adding a column of numbers

  • Thread starter Thread starter Peter Jay Salzman
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Peter Jay Salzman

A friend and I were comparing Access notes.

When she needs to add a column of numbers, she exports the column to
Excel and adds them that way.

I surprised her with a trick I stumbled across. I've been reading an
Access book and in the chapter on basic forms, it said to "play around",
so that's exactly what I did. I found that I can write a form and keep
a running total of a column of numbers. She was impressed with the
discovery, but honestly, using forms and exporting to Excel don't seem
to be very good solutions to a basic problem.

Is there an easier way to add a column of numbers in Access?

I actually think her export solution is more convenient than my forms
based method... :)

Thanks!
Pete
 
Peter said:
A friend and I were comparing Access notes.

When she needs to add a column of numbers, she exports the column to
Excel and adds them that way.

I surprised her with a trick I stumbled across. I've been reading an
Access book and in the chapter on basic forms, it said to "play
around", so that's exactly what I did. I found that I can write a
form and keep a running total of a column of numbers. She was
impressed with the discovery, but honestly, using forms and exporting
to Excel don't seem to be very good solutions to a basic problem.

Is there an easier way to add a column of numbers in Access?

I actually think her export solution is more convenient than my forms
based method... :)

Thanks!
Pete
Click to expand...

Access is a database and Excel is a spread sheet. Adding columns of
numbers is best in Excel. Adding complex assortments of numbers in fields
is the area of Access.

It is just a matter of choosing the right tool for the job.

Acturally there are even better tools than Excel. There are some
electronic tape calculator programs that do a great job.
 
Pete,

This would normally be done in Access in a Query. Exporting to Excel to
do mathematical manipulations would only be justified in very
specialised cases, and a lot of the time, when you are talking functions
related to groupings of data, Access has a lot of advantages over
Excel's ugly sub-totalling processes. In the simplest case, do this...
Make a query in design view based on the table that contains the
information you want the total of.
Put the field you want totalled into the query design grid.
Make it a Totals Query (select Totals from the View menu).
In the Totals row of the grid, enter Sum.
Run the query (click the toolbar button with the red ! icon).
This query can then, if applicable, be used within the record source of
forms or reports.

Having said that, there are also many instances where it is appropriate
to use calculated controls to get totals and other derived values,
within the Form Header or Form Footer sections of forms, or with the
Report Header, Report Footer, or Group Header or Footer sections of reports.
 
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