Is Access a suitable replacement for ACT 2005

[Guest]

I am looking for a more user friendly database program. I am currently using
ACT 2005. Does Access offer similar features (specifically batch mailing
label printing)?

 

[Guest]

Hi Keith,

I've never used ACT 2005, so I cannot make any comparisons of Access to this
product. However, creating and printing mailing labels in Access is fairly
easy. As for batch printing, you can use a query as the recordsource for your
label report, so this would give you control over how many records were in
each batch. For example, you could base the recordset on a simple parameter
query that requested the first letter of last name.


Tom Wickerath, Microsoft Access MVP

http://www.access.qbuilt.com/html/expert_contributors.html
http://www.access.qbuilt.com/html/search.html
__________________________________________

 

[david epsom dot com dot au]

More user friendly that Act? What kind of user?

You can make Access do batch mailing and label printing, if you
know what you are doing, and are willing to put in the effort
up front, but I would not splash around the phrase 'user friendly'.

Act is a contact manager.

Access is a system in which you could build a contact manger if you wanted.

It's like comparing a house to a stack of bricks.

(david)

 

[John Vinson]

I am looking for a more user friendly database program. I am currently using
ACT 2005. Does Access offer similar features (specifically batch mailing
label printing)?

ACT and Access are very different programs. ACT is (to my limited
experience, and apologies if I'm mistaken here) a pretty throroughly
worked out contacts application, among other things - it includes
things like batch mailing labels "out of the box".

Access is really a database development ENVIRONMENT. If you open a new
Access database, there isn't a place to enter Contacts, Names,
Addresses; there isn't a button to click to print mailing labels.

You can build (or adapt a template) a contacts database *in* Access,
and print labels, and such - but don't expect that to happen
automagically. You'll need to develop the bulk of it yourself, or
obtain an Access application that someone else has developed.

John W. Vinson[MVP]