Did you know that Microsoft Access and Microsoft Excel make the perfect team? It’s true!
MS Access is a database and MS Excel is a spreadsheet. Even though they serve different purposes, the two work in tandem. As a matter of fact, when used together, Access and Excel bring out the best in each other. The key is to understand when and where to use each program.
Below are 10 great reasons to use Access and Excel together.
- Share Data. When you plan to keep the data in your Excel spreadsheet but take advantage of the features in Access, you can use an Access link. With your data linked to Excel, you may create reports, queries and read-only forms in Access.
- Copy Data. If you want to copy data from Excel to Access, you don’t need to create a new datasheet. Access sets things up automatically and even guesses the datatype.
- Move Data. Importing data into Access means that the data is stored to a new or existing table without changing anything in Excel. This way, you can use the data natively in Access.
- Set Up Connection. If you create a connection in Excel to the Access database, you can retrieve the data from your query and even update your Excel workbooks.
- Similar Interface. If you’re comfortable using Excel, you’ll be comfortable using Access. Both programs are similar when it comes to tasks like filtering, sorting and querying. Even the icons, command menus and dialog boxes are similar.
- Access Reports. When your data is in Access, you can take advantage of all the tools, including group and summary reports, simple reports, graphical reports, subreports and mailing labels.
- Access Forms. In addition to the report wizards, Access also offers a range of forms that can be used for data. Creating, changing and using reports is similar to what you see in Excel.
- Collect Data. If you want to collect data on people to use in Excel, you can achieve this through Access. Once you have the data, use Excel for analysis.
- Mail Merge. Access can also be used as a Mail Merge service for letters, cards and email messages. There are plenty of wizards to complete the tasks, such as creating labels from reports you generating.
- SharePoint. Publishing your Access database to a SharePoint site means that you can work with the data offline. If changes are made by other users, they will be resolved by a conflict resolution wizard.
We hope that these top 10 reasons have helped you better understand why Access and Excel make a great team! If you have more questions about how to use both seamlessly, give Arkware a call for a FREE consultation. We have the answers, and we’ll be happy to show you how things are done.
This seems completely backwards. Access is a database and Excel is for presentation of data. Surely most users want to get data from a database then manipulate it and present it in excel, rather than vice versa
Hi Erik, you are right! Most users work with Access and Excel that way, however many users begin tracking information in excel until one day, their one spreadsheet grows into multiple spreadsheets and before you know it, Excel has become their database. When a scenario like this takes place, users can start to utilize Access while continuing their work in Excel.
Not so Erik, I found this post because I am looking to see if Access can us Excel as a function … it’s nothing about data presentation, it’s about Excel being easier (for me) to set up calculating a very complicated formula of over 1,000 steps. The data is in Access and I’m trying to see if I can link them so that Access ‘sends’ data from a record for Excel to process and send it back … i.e. Access to use Excel as a function that can be called with variables.