Tutorial: Query Microsoft Access
Tables using Excel for Mac
Part 1 - Overview
By Jim Gordon, co-author of
Office 2011 for
Mac All-in-One For Dummies
Mac users have
several options for using Microsoft Access on
their Macs.
Microsoft Office for Mac can
do the following with Microsoft Access ACCDB and MDB files:
- 2011 and 2016: Get data from
an Access file into an Excel Table or Excel PivotTable
- 2011 and 2016: Use Structured
Query Language (SQL) in
VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) and AppleScript
automation
- 2011 and 2016: Use the macro
recorder to get started with code
- 2011 only: Use a graphical user interface (Microsoft
Query) to generate queries and reports from Microsoft
Access
- Excel 2016 users can only vote
here and hope someday Microsoft will restore this
essential functionality lost to cost cutting
Limitations of Office for Mac with Microsoft
Access
- Interaction with Access is
Read-Only. Excel for Mac can not add, delete or
modify records, fields, queries, views, tables or create
anything new within Access.
- Only tables and views are
available from Access databases. Forms and reports in an
Access database are not available to Excel for Mac.
I need all Access features.
Can I run Microsoft Access on my Mac? Yes!
Microsoft Access 2016
is available as a stand-alone product. You will need
to have Microsoft Windows installed on your Mac
either in Apple's Boot-Camp or in a virtual machine
(Parallels or VMware). Using a virtual machine
allows you to run Wndows and Windows applications
simultaneously with your Mac OS apps. I recommend at
least 16 gigabytes of RAM for running a virtual
machine on your Mac.
Click
here to purchase Microsoft Access 2016
stand-alone edition from the Microsoft store
Click here
to purchase Microsoft Windows 10 from
Amazon.com
Click here
to purchase Parallels Desktop virtual machine
from Amazon.com.
Tutorial
This tutorial explains how to query Microsoft Access tables using
Excel for Mac.
Jim Gordon's MVP
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