138 Access an Existing Database
If you want to keep track of related datasuch as relative's names and addressescreate a
database . You can then use the information in this database with any of your OpenOffic.org components. For example, you could use your new
Relatives database to address reunion party invitations for your parents, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, and cousins using the
MailMerge Wizard as described in
135. Create a Database
After creating a database, you can open it again for editing from any OpenOffice.org component (and start Base at the same time) by simply choosing
File, Open or clicking the
Open button. If you're not running OpenOffice.org at the moment, you can open an existing Base database by double-clicking the database file in Windows Explorer.
If you start Base from the
Start menu, you'll have only two options, as you'll learn in this task: to create a new database, or to register and edit a database created in some other application such as dBASE or Microsoft Access. You cannot open an existing Base database this way.
1. | Click Create a New Database Start Base, and in Step 1 of the Database Wizard which automatically launches, select the Create a new database option and click Next .primary key , which is a field with "ID" in its name. Here I choose CustomerID , with the intent of using it to enter each driver's unique driver number. If you don't have some field in mind that's unique to each record, you can have Base add a primary key field for you in step 8. If you choose a field to act as the primary key, you will designate it as the primary key in step 8. Repeat this step (selecting a field and clicking > ) to add each additional field you want the table to have to the Selected fields list. You can change to a different sample table by repeating step 5 if you want to use a field located in some other sample table. When you're done adding fields to your table, click Next . If you can't find the exact field you want to use, select one that's similar and then modify the field to suit your exact needs in step 7. You can rearrange the fields in the Selected fields list by clicking a field and then pressing the Primary key A field that is never duplicated in any record in a database.136 Enter Data in List View for help in entering data into the table in this view. If you chose Create a form based on this table , see 137 Create a Form for help in creating an entry form you can use to enter data more easily into a complex table with lots of fields. Because you don't really need to make any modifications to the table you created in steps 58, there's no need to choose Modify the table design , which takes you to |
You can add more tables to your database if desired. After entering data for my
Drivers table using
List view, I added a
Team table for team data and a
Car table for data about each car by clicking the
Tables icon in the
Database pane, clicking the
Use Wizard to Create Table option, and following steps 5 to 9 in this task to create another table in my database.