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Adding a column of numbers
A friend and I were comparing Access notes.
When she needs to add a column of numbers, she exports the column to Excel and adds them that way. I surprised her with a trick I stumbled across. I've been reading an Access book and in the chapter on basic forms, it said to "play around", so that's exactly what I did. I found that I can write a form and keep a running total of a column of numbers. She was impressed with the discovery, but honestly, using forms and exporting to Excel don't seem to be very good solutions to a basic problem. Is there an easier way to add a column of numbers in Access? I actually think her export solution is more convenient than my forms based method... Thanks! Pete |
#2
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Adding a column of numbers
Peter Jay Salzman wrote:
A friend and I were comparing Access notes. When she needs to add a column of numbers, she exports the column to Excel and adds them that way. I surprised her with a trick I stumbled across. I've been reading an Access book and in the chapter on basic forms, it said to "play around", so that's exactly what I did. I found that I can write a form and keep a running total of a column of numbers. She was impressed with the discovery, but honestly, using forms and exporting to Excel don't seem to be very good solutions to a basic problem. Is there an easier way to add a column of numbers in Access? I actually think her export solution is more convenient than my forms based method... Thanks! Pete Access is a database and Excel is a spread sheet. Adding columns of numbers is best in Excel. Adding complex assortments of numbers in fields is the area of Access. It is just a matter of choosing the right tool for the job. Acturally there are even better tools than Excel. There are some electronic tape calculator programs that do a great job. -- Joseph E. Meehan 26 + 6 = 1 It's Irish Math |
#3
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Adding a column of numbers
Pete,
This would normally be done in Access in a Query. Exporting to Excel to do mathematical manipulations would only be justified in very specialised cases, and a lot of the time, when you are talking functions related to groupings of data, Access has a lot of advantages over Excel's ugly sub-totalling processes. In the simplest case, do this... Make a query in design view based on the table that contains the information you want the total of. Put the field you want totalled into the query design grid. Make it a Totals Query (select Totals from the View menu). In the Totals row of the grid, enter Sum. Run the query (click the toolbar button with the red ! icon). This query can then, if applicable, be used within the record source of forms or reports. Having said that, there are also many instances where it is appropriate to use calculated controls to get totals and other derived values, within the Form Header or Form Footer sections of forms, or with the Report Header, Report Footer, or Group Header or Footer sections of reports. -- Steve Schapel, Microsoft Access MVP Peter Jay Salzman wrote: A friend and I were comparing Access notes. When she needs to add a column of numbers, she exports the column to Excel and adds them that way. I surprised her with a trick I stumbled across. I've been reading an Access book and in the chapter on basic forms, it said to "play around", so that's exactly what I did. I found that I can write a form and keep a running total of a column of numbers. She was impressed with the discovery, but honestly, using forms and exporting to Excel don't seem to be very good solutions to a basic problem. Is there an easier way to add a column of numbers in Access? I actually think her export solution is more convenient than my forms based method... Thanks! Pete |
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