Book excerpt: As part of the Microsoft Office suite, Access has become the industry's leading desktop database management program for organizing, accessing, and sharing information. But taking advantage of this product to build increasingly complex Access applications requires something more than your typical how-to book. What it calls for is Access Hacks from O'Reilly.This valuable guide provides direct, hands-on solutions that can help relieve the frustrations felt by users struggling to master the program's various complexities. For experienced users, Access Hacks offers a unique collection of proven techniques and tools that enable them to take their database skills and productivity to the next level. For Access beginners, it helps them acquire a firm grasp of the program's most productive features.A smart collection of insider tips and tricks, Access Hacks covers all of the program's finer points. Among the multitude of topics addressed, it shows users how to: work with Access in multi-user environments utilize SQL queries work with external data and programs integrate Access with third-party products Just imagine: a learning process without the angst. Well, Access Hacks delivers it with ease, thanks to these down-and-dirty techniques not collected together anywhere else.Part of O'Reilly's best-selling Hacks series, Access Hacks is based on author Ken Bluttman's two decades of real-world experience in database programming and business application building. It's because of his vast experiences that the book is able to offer such a deep understanding of the program's expanding possibilities.