Other Ways to Find Data

The Find and Replace features work well on individual records, but there are several more sophisticated ways of locating data in your database, as you'll learn in upcoming lessons. They include:

• Sorting— Rearranging the data on-screen so it's easier to skim through the list to find what you want. See Lesson 18.

• Filtering— Narrowing down the list to eliminate the data you know you don't want to see. See Lesson 18.

• Indexing— Defining other fields besides the primary key that you want Access to keep track of (that is, keep an index of). Indexing is optional, but in large databases it makes your searching and sorting faster. See Lesson 18.

• Querying— Creating a more formal filter with complex criteria that you can save and apply again and again. See Lessons 19–20.

• Reporting— Creating a printed report containing only the records and fields that you're interested in. See Lessons 21–22.

In this lesson, you learned to find and replace data in a database. In the next lesson, you will learn about two other ways of locating the data you want: sorting and filtering.