Microsoft Access 2013 Step by Step – Joyce Cox and Joan Lambert

Data is everywhere in modern Kenyan professional life. Every organisation — every business, every school, every hospital, every NGO, every government office — is managing information that needs to be stored, organised, queried, and reported accurately and efficiently. Most are doing it badly. They are keeping records in spreadsheets that were never designed for relational data management. They are losing information. They are producing reports manually that a properly designed database would generate automatically. They are spending hours on data tasks that should take minutes.

The specific solution is Microsoft Access — the database management application that sits within the Microsoft Office suite that most Kenyan professionals already have, and that most Kenyan professionals have never learned to use. Microsoft Access 2013 Step by Step by Joyce Cox and Joan Lambert — published by Microsoft Press, the official Microsoft learning publisher — is the most structured, most clearly written, and most practically sequenced guide to Access available anywhere; the specific book that takes you from never having opened Access through every major skill you need to build, populate, query, and report from professionally designed databases.

“Build exactly the skills you need. Learn at the pace you want.” — that specific promise, printed on the cover of every Step by Step title, is the specific commitment that has made the Microsoft Step by Step series the most trusted and most widely used Microsoft Office learning series in the world.

What This Book Covers:

Getting Started with Access 2013 — The Foundation:

• The specific Access interface — the ribbon, the navigation pane, the object window, and the specific components of the Access working environment that every new user needs to understand before building anything
• The specific Access objects — tables, queries, forms, reports, and macros — and the specific role of each in a complete database system; why understanding the relationship between these objects is the specific prerequisite for building databases that actually work rather than databases that merely store data
• The specific difference between Access and Excel — why some data management tasks belong in Excel and some belong in Access; the specific indicators that tell you when a spreadsheet has outgrown its suitability and when a proper relational database is the specific right tool for the specific job
• The specific database design principles that Access implements — normalisation, relational structure, and the specific table design decisions that produce databases that are both accurate and efficient versus databases that are redundant, inconsistent, and increasingly difficult to maintain
• How to open, navigate, and work with existing Access databases before building new ones — the specific orientation that makes learning Access from real databases more effective than learning from abstract examples

Tables — The Foundation of Every Database:

• Creating tables — the specific field types available in Access 2013 (Short Text, Long Text, Number, Date/Time, Currency, AutoNumber, Yes/No, OLE Object, Hyperlink, Attachment, Calculated) and the specific data storage requirements and the specific field properties of each
• Field properties — field size, format, input mask, caption, default value, validation rule, validation text, required, and indexed; the specific properties that determine how data is stored, displayed, and validated in each field
• Primary keys — what they are, why every table needs one, and how to designate the specific field or combination of fields that will serve as the unique identifier for each record
• Table relationships — the specific one-to-one, one-to-many, and many-to-many relationships between tables that make relational databases relational; how to create relationships in Access using the Relationships window; the specific concept of referential integrity and why enforcing it protects the specific accuracy of your data
• Importing data — how to bring existing data from Excel spreadsheets, from text files, and from other sources into Access tables; the specific import wizard and the specific data cleaning that imported data almost always requires

Queries — Finding and Working with Data:

• Select queries — the most fundamental query type; how to retrieve specific records from one or multiple tables based on specific criteria; the specific Query Design view and the specific drag-and-drop field selection that makes building queries visual rather than code-dependent
• Criteria — the specific operators (=, <>, <, >, <=, >=, Between, Like, In, Is Null, Is Not Null) and the specific combinations of AND and OR logic that allow queries to retrieve exactly the specific records that any given situation requires
• Calculated fields — creating fields in queries that calculate new values from existing data (totals, differences, concatenations, date calculations) without storing those calculated values in the tables; the specific Expression Builder that helps build complex calculated field expressions
• Aggregate queries — using Group By, Sum, Avg, Count, Min, Max, and the specific total row that transforms a detail-level query into a summary query; the specific use cases for aggregate queries in management reporting and analysis
• Action queries — the specific queries (Update, Append, Delete, Make Table) that do not merely retrieve data but modify it; how to use action queries carefully and safely; the specific precautions that prevent accidental data modification
• Parameter queries — queries that prompt for specific input values when run; how to build the specific parameter prompts that make queries interactive and reusable for different values without requiring design changes each time

Forms — Working with Data Efficiently:

• Creating forms — the specific Form Wizard and the specific Form Design view; how to build forms that make data entry accurate, efficient, and user-friendly rather than requiring users to work directly with tables
• Form controls — text boxes, labels, combo boxes, list boxes, check boxes, option groups, command buttons, and the specific properties of each that determine how they look and how they behave; the specific binding of controls to fields that connects the form to the underlying table or query
• Form layout — the specific design decisions about layout, spacing, colour, and the specific tab order that makes data entry forms both professional and practically efficient
• Subforms — forms embedded within forms that display related records from linked tables; the specific one-to-many relationship display that subforms enable; how to create and configure subforms for the specific data entry scenarios where related records must be entered alongside parent records
• Navigation forms — the specific Access 2013 feature for building menu-based navigation systems that allow non-technical users to move between the specific forms, reports, and other objects of a database without needing to understand its underlying structure

Reports — Presenting Data Professionally:

• Creating reports — the specific Report Wizard and the specific Report Design view; how to build reports that present database data in the specific format that management, stakeholders, and operational teams need
• Grouping and sorting — how to organise report data into meaningful groups with subtotals, group headers, and group footers; the specific Report Wizard’s grouping interface and the specific Group, Sort, and Total pane in Design view
• Calculated controls in reports — the specific expressions for report totals, running sums, percentages, and the specific aggregate calculations that turn raw data into genuinely informative management reports
• Report formatting — page layout, margins, headers, footers, logos, and the specific professional presentation choices that make Access reports appropriate for formal business, government, and NGO reporting contexts
• Conditional formatting — the specific rules that change the appearance of report controls based on their values; how to use conditional formatting to highlight specific performance indicators, flag specific exceptions, and guide report readers’ attention to the specific information that matters most

The Step by Step Learning Methodology:

• The specific practice files — downloadable files that accompany the book and provide the specific databases, the specific exercises, and the specific learning scenarios that turn reading about Access into actually using Access; why hands-on practice with real files is the specific learning approach that produces genuine skill rather than theoretical familiarity
• The specific “Step by Step” instruction format — numbered, clearly written, specific action steps that guide the reader through every procedure from beginning to end without assuming prior knowledge; the specific instruction style that makes Access genuinely learnable for every Kenyan professional regardless of their previous technology background
• The specific skill building sequence — how the book builds from foundational concepts through increasingly sophisticated applications in the specific progressive order that produces genuine, lasting competence rather than isolated technique familiarity

Why Kenyan Professionals Are Buying This Book: Every Kenyan organisation that manages data — which is every organisation — is either using Access well, using Access poorly, or not using Access at all and struggling with Excel or manual systems that are inadequate for the specific data management tasks they are being used for. Microsoft Access 2013 Step by Step gives every Kenyan data manager, every Kenyan administrator, and every Kenyan professional who works with information the specific, step-by-step, Microsoft-official guidance to build the database skills that transform how their organisation manages its most important resource — its data.

At Ksh 100, this is the official Microsoft learning resource for Access 2013 — the most structured and most clearly written database skills guide available anywhere in Kenya.

Who This Book Is For:

• Kenyan professionals in every sector who manage data in Excel or manually and who want to learn the specific database management application that would handle their data more accurately, more efficiently, and more powerfully
• Data administrators, records managers, and office managers who want the specific database skills to build the specific information systems their organisations need
• University students in computer science, information technology, business information systems, and any other Kenyan programme where database management is a required or beneficial skill
• Kenyan NGO and government professionals who manage programme data, beneficiary records, and operational information and who want the specific Access skills to manage that information more professionally
• Every reader of Excel: The Comprehensive Guide (Vonhoegen), The Hacker’s Guide to Scaling Python (Danjou), and SPSS Statistics for Dummies (McCormick) who wants the most structured and most practically sequenced database management guide to complete their data skills library

📖 Authors: Joyce Cox and Joan Lambert 🏢 Publisher: Microsoft Press 📄 Format: PDF eBook (instant download via WhatsApp or email) 💰 Price: Ksh 100 only 🚀 Delivery: Instant after M-Pesa payment confirmation

👉 Order now on cliffmatt.co.ke — Pay via M-Pesa, receive your PDF instantly.