Create a report

- [Instructor] We have explored so many facets of the Access database. We've created tables to store information, forms to view, edit, and add data to our tables, and queries to filter the information so we can use the remaining data in reports. Ah, reports. Reports are the reason we work so hard to make sure our database contains current and accurate data. In this video, we'll focus on creating simple reports. We're going to use the Report Wizard, and we'll also use the Quick Report tool.

On the Access 2010 MOS exam you will probably be asked to create a simple report, and you'll be able to use either one of the two methods that we're going to review in this video. I have the 06_01 Exercise File open, so let's go ahead and get started. As I mentioned, there are two ways to create a report. Let's go to the Create tab, and I'll go ahead and select a table. Here is my Quick Report, and here is my Report Wizard. You can also go right into Report Design.

I see a lot of users get really frustrated if they try and do that, so we're going to stick with either the Quick Report, or the Report Wizard. So let's create a report using the Quick Report feature, based on our Customers table. With the table selected, I'll click on Quick Report. It takes you into Layout view in case you want to move anything around or resize any columns, but let's go ahead and hop into Report View. There's our report, it looks pretty nice, doesn't it? Let's go back into Layout View and you'll see how easy it is to resize some of these fields, so we can see if our information will fit on one page.

See the dotted line? That's telling me that this would be on page one, and the rest is going to be on page two. We'll talk about how to format our reports later on, but right now we're just focusing on how can you create a report? Let's go ahead and close this report. I'll just save the report as Customers. Next let's create a report based on the Employees table. This time, we'll go to Create and we're going to use the Report Wizard.

Now just like the Forms Wizard, you're able to pick which table or query you'd like to use for your report, and which fields you'd like included. So for this report, let's do the EmployeeID, FirstName, LastName, the Title, and their Department. We'll go ahead and click on Next. In a report, you can also group information. Wouldn't it be nice if we could see the report based on each department? Pretty cool, okay, let's go ahead and click on Next.

You can sort the records in up to four different fields. Let's have it sort by employee LastName, so we're going to see the department, all the employees within the department, and they will be sorted by their last name. Let's go ahead and click Next. We have three different layouts. We have Stepped, Block, and Outline. Usually the Stepped layout works really well when you're grouping things together. Now, you can have a Portrait orientation or a Landscape orientation.

The option down below is one that I really love. If it's checked off it's going to automatically adjust the field width so that all off your fields fit on one page. That's so much less work that you'll have to do. Let's go ahead and click Next. What do you want to title your report? Let's call it Employees by Department. Two choices, either Preview the report or go into report design. I want to preview it, I want to see what it looks like.

There, how about that? There's our Employees by Department. Here's Admin, we have one employee, here's HR, we have two, marketing, and notice how they're last names are alphabetized. Pretty cool. There's a good chance that you're going to need to know how to create a report as part of the Access 2010 MOS exam. You now have two ways to create reports using the Quick Report and using the Report Wizard. A word of advice, if you're asked to create a report but not asked to embellish it, add color, move the fields around, just create the report and don't worry about how it looks.

I know it's hard because we all want to fix things, but don't touch the layout. That's part of the challenge on the exam is to follow the instructions exactly the way they're written, and don't do anything else, and you'll do just fine on the MOS exam.