How to create a database "address book" through the wizard

Personally, I'm not a fan of the Access wizard. You can do this manually and it'll probably not take too long. Plus you'll have a much better feel for the database.

Do you have Excel spreadsheets with addresses? Then upload them and Access will make them into tables.

If you don't, then you'll need to do more manual data entry. But again, it might give you a better grip on your data.

An address book database should have a table with the following fields (just name it Mailing _Addresses - yes, you need the underscore because blanks can sometimes be problematic)):

• Record_Number (make this your primary key)
  
• Last_Name
  
• First_Name
  
• Address_Line1
  
• Address_Line2 (this is for apartment numbers)
  
• City
  
• State
  
• ZIP
  
• Home_Phone
  
• Cell_Phone
  
• Work_Phone

As you can see, there are going to be some fields left blank for some of the rows. If I was in your address database, I wouldn't have an apartment number, for example.

Now here's where it gets interesting. Let's say you had some additional information on people but to keep it in the main address table would make everything unwieldy. You might have added information such as:

• Maiden name
  
• Kids' names
  
• Relation to you
  
• Birth date

Here, you could create a separate table with just these fields copied from Mailing_Addresses:

• Record_Number (again, make this your primary key)
  
• Last_Name
  
• First_Name

Then add your other fields as columns, making sure that fields where the name is more than one word are joined by underscores. Maybe you want up to two fields for kids, so name those fields something like Kid1 and Kid2 or Older_Kid and Younger_Kid. You can even split up birth dates into fields for year, month, and day. Name this table Extra_Info

When you want to see, say, my record in full, you can join the two tables together at the Record_Number field. This is why I'm suggesting that field be the primary key for both tables.

An even join will get you everywhere there is something in a field for any of the fields you request in your query. So if you use an even join (=) and you don't ask for Address_Line2 or any kid name fields (I have no kids), then you'll get my record. But if you include those fields, Access will not show me as those fields have nothing in them.

To get the fields with nothing in them, you need to use uneven joins. They tend to look like < or >.

Mailing_Addresses > Extra_Info (this join will get you blanks in the first table and not the second as I recall)
Mailing_Addresses < Extra_Info (this join will get you blanks in the second table and not the first as I recall)
Mailing_Addresses <> Extra_Info (this join will get you blanks in both tables as I recall)

But check my work on the joins as it's been several years since I was actively using databases.

BTW database knowledge can snag you a decent career.