Microsoft Office Home and Student

[Speicher]

I thought I had managed to load, read and amend a Database in Word on Microsoft Office 2010 Home and Student.

It now appears that the program may have recognised the document as a database, and started up a trial version of Access. Yesterday, I briefly got a message to say when the trial version runs out. Try as I might to find this message again, I cannot. I did not realise the importance of the message at the time, as I thought I was in "Word".

Does anyone know if this trial version would have started when the Home and Student Package was installed or from when I loaded the document (that it decided was a database). Alternatively where can I find the info about the trial and/or how to upgrade to include Access. I think that Access is only on the Professional (and expensive) version. It is a fairly basic database, and I do not need all the Relationships etc on this document.

All is not lost if the Trial runs out sooner than expected, but it would be very helpful to find out when it runs out.

Please bear in mind when you very kindly reply, that I am not a computer whizz, so can you explain it accordingly?
Thank you

 

[Speicher]

The Home and Student version was purchased about mid-April. I think the day it runs out is the 20th of either May or June. If, as you say, it is 60 days, then it would be the 20th June.

I tried Help, and will look again at Help>about. Thank you

I did not down load the Free Trial. (At least I am 99% certain that I didn't.) I am guessing that when I tried to load the database in Word, the computer decided it needed Access Professional, and did not tell me. It would have been very helpful, to say the least, if my attention had been drawn to this.

Do you know if I can just download the up-grade to Access 2010, without the rest of the Professional Package ie the Desk top publishing part (which I do not envisage needing) ? Excel is on Home and Student and is sufficient for my needs.

 

[threebikesmcginty]

I'm sure there will be people who know more about this than me!

If it helps, can I put myself forward as someone who knows less about this than Uncle Mort?

 

[Speicher]

Yes, TBM, but do you know more than I do?

 

[threebikesmcginty]

Speich, your knowledge of the granny square technique is unsurpassed!

 

[phil_hg_uk]

If you have office home & student 2010 when you install it a trial version of office 2010 pro also installs (unless you untick the tiny little tick box at the bottom of the screen) so that is where your trial version of access came from cant remember if it is 60 or 30 days though.

 

[Speicher]

Thank you Phil. I think I have either ten days or forty days left then.

I had better get busy.

If the upgrade to Access cost in the region of £50, I would be tempted to upgrade, but not if it is nearer £100.

 

[phil_hg_uk]

There is a place in one of the menus that tells you how long you have left on the trial licence but I cant remember where it is and I dont have a copy of 2010 to hand at the moment. Try looking in the help menu, if I remember I will let you know.

Haha I found this:

Look in that menu in access and see if it tells you how long you have left.

 

[Speicher]

Excellent Phil. Yes, I found it, and have nine days left. Thank you for your most excellent help.

This should be enough time to finish off all the alterations that I need to make to the database in question. As well as enough time to know whether I need such a package. Is it easy to use the Desktop Publisher, or would I need a degree in "How to Understand complex structures"?

I have the Home and Student version on the laptop. It seems that Office 2007 does not have a database either. Which is surprising as the database was constructed in Office 2007.

Thinking ahead, if I upgrade to Office Professional now, that might suit my needs for a decade or so. Although I am not working at present, I think I need to make sure my computer skills stay (relatively) up to date.

If Spreadsheets are more widely available, are there very few people using databases? I did not think Spreadsheet applications and databases were similar.

When I said I tried "Help", I used the little question mark in the blue circle at the top right of the screen you have shown. How did I miss the word itself, just below Print (and Print Preview)?

 

[phil_hg_uk]

I have office 2007 Small Business Edition and that has access in it but I never use it these days and I run my own computer business, so it is one of those programs that if you need to work with databases a lot you need it but you can always buy it later as an add on item.

What features you get depends on what version of office you buy. For instance mine has word, excel, powerpoint, outlook, access & publisher but I need to have all the features available just incase someone brings in a pc with an access or publisher file they want me to do something with.

Office 2007 and 2010 has a nightmare menu in my opinion they should have left it alone with office 2003 as it was much easier to use, but they had to fanny about with it just so they can extract some more money out of the unsuspecting public and line their greasy pockets some more.

 

[Speicher]

I have made good progress with all the amendments. It is a database of about 700 books in the Library of a Charity involved with art, crafts, recycling, the environment etc.

I have condensed the width of the columns so that it will print onto A4 landscape. This has meant setting the margins to "narrow" as specified in the margins options. I did try to alter the margins to Bespoke, but got a teensy bit muddled. I decided it would be easier to use one of their suggested margins set-ups.

Can you very helpful people please tell me how to set "narrow" margins as the default for printing pages of this database. It runs into about twenty pages, and I would like to avoid anyone printing off pages, and then each "page" expanding to two pages, because they forgot about the margins. Not only is that a waste of paper, but the subsequent cut and paste is a test of one's patience. I tried looking in the print options for default settings and could not find them.

Also the version of Microsoft Office Professional that I found for £55 at Amazon, is from one of their suppliers. This particular supplier has only so far sold one copy, so I am not pursuing that avenue.

Open Office says that it is compatible with Microsoft packages, has anyone found this to be the case?

 

[phil_hg_uk]

Have you tried going into page setup and adjusting the scaling so that whatever it is you are trying to print fits on the sheet you can shrink it down by % or just tell it to fit it to one page, I sometimes use it to shrink down a spreadsheet so it fits on one page.

Becareful buying any computer software over the internet when it look too cheap coz usually it is either fake or and academic version that is not licenced for general use or from a dubious source.

Open office can be quite compatiable and people will say it works fine but I have always had problems with it and prefer the actual product but thats just me as I am in the trade I get it at cost for use my business.

 

[Speicher]

I did not think about reducing it by a %. I will try that before Sunday, when my trial ends.

I have now found why is was so confusing to set the margins to bespoke. The top and bottom margins wanted the size in mm and the left and right seemed to want the size in cms. It might have been me, in error, but I have solved that now. I wanted narrow margins left and right, but a big top margin to allow for putting the pages in a ring binder. Some of the very artistic people who will need to look at the list of books will not be very computer literate, shall I say diplomatically.

I do not intend to buy the Microsoft Office 2007 Professional at £55, as you say it is too cheap. Open Office might work for this database, as it is fairly basic, and we do not need complex comparisions and relationships. I have also found someone who would be able to transfer the database from Access to Excel, if we wanted to.

If we stay with Access, (which is the more likely scenario) I will ask him if he can reinstate the "auto id numerator" function, which my colleague managed accidentally to disable. Unless it is comparatively easy to do so, and you could explain it to me. But I know you are busy working and may not have time to write it down for a comparatively inexperienced person like me.

My colleague who set up the database is the same age as me. When we learned about computers many years ago, probably when you were still at school, there was a definite difference in the functions of a database as opposed to a spreadsheet. This may explain why she chose a database.

 

[phil_hg_uk]

What sort of database is it, multiple tables or single table ?

 

[Speicher]

It is just one table. A list of about 600 books, with about twenty columns.