What are the differences between Microsoft Access and Excel. Why would you use one as opposed to the other?
71Different programs
These are two totally different programs. Microsoft Access is a database program while Excel is a spreadsheet program.
You would use Access to collect, manupilate and sort data. The primary use of excel is to create financial spreadsheets. Excel has some limited capabilities to sort data but its primary function is to create financial spreadsheets.
With Excel you can create extremely complicated financial "what if" scenarios where you can change some variables and get a good look at the financial consequences. It is an extremely powerful spread sheet. It does have some sorting capabilities but you would not want to try to create and maintain a complex database in Excel.
With Access you can collect, sort and manupliate data. For example you could do a data base on a large number of employees or members of a club, storing all the personal information. Then you could ask the program to give you just those that fit in any set of parameters. For example, employees with over ten year service, or employees in a certain state, division, zip code. Access can be used for any application where there is a large amount of data and you want the ability to sort it by different criteria.
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Haha. I was gonna make a hub on the same thing, but looks like it's unneccessary now :)
There are at least two hubs with this title, and this is the better one. As of the time I read it, it had a hubscore of 81. I've been working with both tools for the last 10 years, and have come across any of a number of situations where one tool quite clearly was better than the other. Name and address lists are almost always better in Access, while the need for large numbers of formulas is often best in Excel. Good hub!
Steve
Thanks for you comment.
working
Violette DeSantis says:
7 months ago
John,
Great answer. I was going to answer this as in my database days I was always "thrilled" to receive data in a spreadsheet that was better served in a database structure.
It still amazes me the misconception people have that Excel can be used instead of a database. If you want to set up some data fast in Excel do so; but I highly recommend importing it to a database when time allows.
Great Hub!