Access and Excel Comparison

[wriggley]

Any Experts in Excel and Access out there?
Compare and contrast the data base functions and capabilities of Microsoft Access and MS Exel.

 

[Amiel]

Simply put, both Access and Excell will allow you to use VBA to create your application.

Access is specifically optomized to create database applications.

MS Excell is specifically optomized to handle numerical operations, while providing a full complement of database acccess tools (that may be the source of the data for those operations) .

Amiel
amielzz@netscape.net

 

[kadam]

A couple of years back I was designing a database and had to make the choice between Access and Excel. I chose Excel because at the time I was an Access novice and Excel is much more intuitive, even when coding.

I should have used Access, however, because Excel has a limit on table size to about 64,000 rows. This ended up causing problems because the db would run out of room within a year.

On the other hand, I dislike nothing more than the report capability of Access, and often dump data into Excel for the creation of reports.

Hope this helps - Kevin.

 

[MichaelRed]

The only downside to Ms. Access (vs. Ms. Excel) is the failure of Ms. Access reports to be able to be 'exported' and retain the report image. This is particularly true of graphics, including the Ms. Chart/Graph applet. Otherwise, all of those 'numerical calculations' may be implemented in a variety of ways. I prefer just getting the old textbooks out and implementing the formulas, but you can also easily use Ms. Excel as a hidden app to do the calcs and return the results. To me the (so-called) advantage of Ms. Excel is the (near?) total lack of security. Aanything created in Ms. Excel can be altered almost instantaneously by almost everyone - often withouit even the intent to make a change. Its not that I dislike Ms. Excel for those who ' ... just want to crunch a few numbers ... ' - but I would seriously consider buying the bumper sticker ...

[tab][red]FRIENDS DON'T LET FRIENDS USE SPREADSHEETS[/red]|-0



MichaelRed
mred@duvallgroup.com
There is never time to do it right but there is always time to do it over

 

[PerryG]

Bottom line....Access is a database....store data here....Excel is a spreadsheet.....do analysis here....that is presumably why they gave you the ability to pass data between the two so easily.

I'm a real grinch about using the right tool for the right job and Excel is not the tool to build a db in.

PerryG