1. Modify the look of the forms (start with the customer). Open the form in design view. First, make the form wider, then adjust size and move individual fields. Then create a header and a footer – simply drag down the h&f bars.

2. In order to format the form and/or its individual elements, right-click, choose properties, eventually, click View – Properties. A window with 5 tabs/options appears (all, format, data, event, other). To change the appearance of the form interface, click format.

3. To change the background color click in the Back Color row, click the button next to it, choose color, click ok; choose special effect. Leave the properties window open, click on the header part, change the background color, click the footer part, change color and make its height identical with the header. (from the header properties copy the height, and paste it in the same row in the footer properties)

4. Change appearance of the labels (you can change them individually or all at once – hold the shift key and click on each text label) in the properties change border color, border width, fore color (color of text), increase font size, change font, font weight – make it bold.

5. Similarly, you can change appearance of the text boxes (change font, color, border width, etc.), however keep on mind that it must have user-friendly look and readability must be ensured! If the editing decreased readability (text is too big to fit the field), you need to change the size of individual fields, eventually enlarge the form and move the fields.

6. We want a form title to appear in the header. On the toolbox bar (view>toolbars>toolbox), click on the “italic aa” button – text label button. Text label = inactive element – used for descriptions. Click the button and draw a rectangle in the header part, in the rectangle type CUSTOMERS. Click on this field, and edit it using the properties window – change font, font size, colors, etc.

7. In the footer part, again insert label with your names and today’s date. Format it and save changes.

8. Preview the form in the form view.

9. Return back to design view choose form properties (right below the form’s title bar in the left top corner there’s a square – click it) choose dividing line NO. Save changes.

10. Similarly edit the other 2 forms.

11. Enter couple more records in the products database so that there are at least 2 times 2 products of identical category. (chocolate – praline, chocolate bar; clothes – skirt, hat) Close the form.

12. In the “basic” window (with 7 tabs), click on queries – new –design view. We will create a query (DBMS Interrogation) that will sort out products by categories. Choose products, click ok.

13. In the 1st column, 1st cell, choose category, Show is NOT check-marked, in the criteria field type like “food”. In the next column choose field name, sort ascending (to have it in alphabetical order), checkmark show, in the 3rd column field row write description, checkmark show, and finally, choose price and also checkmark show. Save query by the product category name (e.g. food).

14. Choose query – run to see how it works. Choose view – SQL view to see the structured query language that gets the data out of the database.

SELECT products.Name, products.Description, products.Price
FROM products
WHERE (((products.Category) Like "food"))
ORDER BY products.Name;

15. Close the query. In the basic window – query option, copy the query, paste it and name it by the other category name. Then click design, and simply in the “category” column rewrite the “like” criteria to the other category, e.g. clothes. Run the query to test functionality. Close and save changes.

16. Create another query to sort customers in alphabetical order. Click on new query – choose table customers, OK.

17. In the 1st cell choose lastname, choose sort – ascending, show, in the other fields choose all the other fields of the table. Save query as customers.

18. Click the Report tab, New – Report Wizard, choose query Category, OK, move all available fields to selected fields, click Next, again Next, Next, Next, Corporate style, Next, Finish. You can make changes to location of individual elements on the report, as well as to colors, fonts just like in forms - through the Design View, adjusting properties. Try to change product’s fore color in the detail section. Preview the report.

19. Similarly, create report for the other products’ category and customers.