Microsoft Access Description Microsoft Access is a powerful program to create and manage your databases. It has many built in features to assist you in constructing and viewing your information. Access is much more involved and is a more genuine database application than other programs such as Microsoft Works. This tutorial will help you get started with Microsoft Access and may solve some of your problems, but it is a very good idea to use the Help Files that come with Microsoft Access, or go to Microsoft's web site located at http://microsoft.com/office/access/default.htm for further assistance. First of all you need to understand how Microsoft Access breaks down a database. Some keywords involved in this process are: Database File, Table, Record, Field, Data-type. Here is the Hierarchy that Microsoft Access uses in breaking down a database. Database File: This is your main file that encompasses the entire database and that is saved to your hard-drive or floppy disk. Example) StudentDatabase.mdb Table:A table is a collection of data about a specific topic. There can be multiple tables in a database. Example #1) Students Example #2) Teachers Field:Fields are the different categories within a Table. Tables usually contain multiple fields. Example #1) Student LastName Example #2) Student FirstName Datatypes:Datatypes are the properties of each field. A field only has 1 datatype. FieldName) Student LastName Datatype) Text