Microsoft Access 97 Exam Prep

The Microsoft Office User Specialist exam provides expert users of Microsoft Office with a way to distinguish themselves from the hordes of others who claim expertise in this top-selling productivity software package. You must understand Microsoft Access--one of the most feature-rich and potentially confusing parts of Office--in order to get the certification. This book helps you master the software one step at a time.

The big, airy pages of Exam Prep: Microsoft Access 97 center on full-color screen shots of Access 97 in action. The book is broken down into spreads, each of which covers a particular task or feature. A typical spread includes color screen shots with key interface elements labeled and a step-by-step procedure for accomplishing a particular task.

The tasks Reding and Friedrichsen cover range from the banal (starting Access via the Start menu) to the fairly exotic (building elaborate reports). In between, they cover data entry, form-building, database relations, and queries with Boolean operators. Although you may wish the authors paid more attention to Modules and other difficult, high-end Access features, the material here ought to be enough to get studious readers through the exam.

An excellent companion CD-ROM adds value to this book. Animations on the CD-ROM demonstrate procedures, which you can then practice in a "dummy" Access environment. Quizzes follow, with the option of submitting responses to an instructor via a network. One piece of advice: the software on the CD-ROM will not install under Windows NT.