Output is normally information either displayed on-screen, or printed. A screen display is usually a Datasheet or a form and is the response to an interactive query or command. Forms can be printed, but for most purposes, printed reports are the best way to provide hard copy output. This is particularly so for information covering several records, especially when summary information is also required. Reports organize and group information in a table or query and provide a way to print the data in a database. Your first step in creating a database should be to establish what you want from it, i.e. the output that in our case is the report. .
You can use reports for a variety of purposes: some common examples are periodical sales summaries, stock lists, mailing lists and invoices. Currently in my office, the only report we run is from our Remedy Trouble Ticket database. This database logs and stores Help Desk calls and maintains a network history in regards to outages and system downtime. We can run queries that will list out item by item any information that we want. This particular database is run in SQL so it's not the best example because it doesn't display reports in ordinary Access format. It still helps identify and organize our data into logical groups and provides groups and totals, which by definition are just, like a report in Access. Grouping allows you to identify and organize data into logical groups and to provide group and grand totals. Up to a maximum of ten groups are allowed. You can also include a sub-report as part of your report. However, in regards to Access I believe the easiest way to produce your own reports is by using the Microsoft Access wizards. There is a choice of different reports. Easiest of all is the Auto Report Wizard, which constructs the whole report according to your instructions. You can also choose single column, Groups/Totals, Mailing Labels, Summary and Tabular reports.
