Tour of Queries

A query asks a question about the information in one or more tables and then retrieves the results.

For example, if you wanted to know which employees had worked for the company for more than five years, you could create a query to examine the contents of the Hire Date field to find all the records in which the hire date is more than five years old. Access would retrieve the information that meets your criteria and display it in a datasheet.

Open a Query

1. Double-click the query you want to open in the Navigation Pane.
   

Notice that the query doesn’t look any different than a table. Information is displayed in a datasheet, and you can even edit records in some queries. But, the information in a query isn’t a duplication of the data in a table—it’s just another way of looking at it.

Display a Query in Design View

In Design View, you can see a query’s underlying tables, which fields are included in the query, and the criteria used to specify which records to display.

1. Click the View button on the ribbon.

   You can also display a query in Design View by right-clicking the query object in the Navigation Pane and selecting Design View. Or, click the Design View button in the Status bar.

   

In Design View, you can see a query’s underlying tables, which fields are included in the query, and the criteria used to specify which records to display.

Change a Query’s Criteria

1. Select the information you want to edit in the Criteria row and type in your changes.
   

Display a Query in Datasheet View

1. Click the View button on the ribbon.
   

Access runs the query and displays its records.