16 min read
A Guided Tour of the Screen
The Ribbon, the Navigation Pane, the Object Window, Views, and the Status Bar — what each part of the screen is for.
You will learn: the five main parts of the Access window. You will do: name each part on the diagram. know where commands live.
Start Microsoft Access
Goal
Open Microsoft Access.
Every other lesson starts from the main window.
Open the Start menu
Where
Do this
Verification
Check your work
You are correct if all of these are true:
- Access opens. You may see a start screen or a blank window.
If something looks wrong
Fix
Check that Microsoft 365 or Office is installed. Install Access from your Office account if it is missing.| Main window parts | |
|---|---|
RiversideLibrary : Database (Access)
| MemberID | FirstName | LastName | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sophie | Walsh | s.walsh@… |
| 2 | Harry | Cole | h.cole@… |
Open tables, queries, forms, and reports appear here. Drag the bar between panes to resize — Access works the same way.
Create tab
New tables, queries, forms, and reports.
Field Notes: Orienting Yourself on the Screen
The Ribbon, the wide band of buttons near the top, organizes commands into labeled tabs: File (opens Backstage view — opening, saving, and managing databases), Home (views, formatting, basic editing), Create (new tables, queries, forms, reports), External Data (importing and exporting), and Database Tools (relationships, VBA, maintenance). Extra "contextual" tabs appear automatically whenever you're working on a specific object — a Table Design tab shows up only while a table is open in Design View, for example.
The Navigation Pane, running down the left side, lists every object in the database — every table, query, form, report, and macro — grouped into collapsible categories. Double-click a name to open it; this pane is the master directory you'll return to constantly.
The Object Window fills the center of the screen with whatever you currently have open, and can hold several objects at once as tabs across its top, much like tabs in a web browser.
Switching Views
Most objects can be looked at in more than one view:
- Datasheet View shows a table's or query's data as a plain grid of rows and columns, similar to Excel — for typing in and browsing data directly. - Design View shows an object's underlying structure rather than its live data — a table's fields and data types, or a form's layout blueprint — and is where most careful building happens. - Layout View, for forms and reports only, is a middle ground: it shows real data while still letting you adjust the design, like editing a live preview.
Switch views from the View button on the far left of the Home tab, or by right-clicking an object's tab. The Status Bar, along the very bottom, quietly shows the current view's name and, while entering data, which record you're on out of the total.
More lessons in Microsoft Access · Next: Creating, Opening, and Saving a Database · Previous: Opening Access for the First Time