Introduction

The Microsoft Office Access 2003 database wizards make creating databases easy, but you may need to create a database that does not fit any of the wizard's predefined choices. In that situation, you may need to create the database "from scratch."

Creating a database from scratch involves careful planning. You must:

• Determine the purpose and scope of your database.

• Decide what tables your database will contain and what the content of those tables will be.

• Define how data in one table is related to data in another table.

When you create a database from scratch, you can take advantage of the tools that Access provides. If you don't plan to create a database from scratch but instead plan to use only existing Access databases, you might not need the information in this chapter. Understanding database design concepts, however, will help you better understand how to create effective queries later on.