Help! I need to know which office products I need. I'm clueless!

[kingmarki123]

Greetings,

I am doing research for my wife. She needs to get MS Office programs that
will allow her to compile a database of client information (is this where she
would use Access?) and a product, like Word I assume, that will allow her to
compose letters or other mail postcards, flyers, etc. to clients. These
documents need to be filled in by means of a mail merge (so she says) to fill
in the clients name, addresses, etc.

Can anyone tell me which products I need to get her? None of this
office/business related stuff makes any sense to me. Graphics, multi-track
recording and such I can do anything, not so much with the business stuff.
So . . . I really need some help if possible.

Thank you very much in advance for your assistance.

Mark R.
(e-mail address removed)
(e-mail address removed)

 

[June7 via AccessMonster.com]

Yes, you are on right track. MS Office package that offers Word, Excel,
Access, Powerpoint (or some other provider with similar suite, although can't
think of alternate) is appropriate. Word will accommodate some simple
publication documents but if want to get heavy into
pamphlets/brochures/newsletters need something like Publisher. Since this is
an integrated suite of software the elements can work cooperatively, might
require some programming with VBA (which is included with each element) to
accomplish some more complex interactions.

 

[Arvin Meyer [MVP]]

Microsoft Office 2007 Professional is a good choice for those unfamiliar
with the Office programs. It contains all the programs she'll need to
accomplish her goals. If she has some experience with Office products, she
may prefer using Office Professional 2003 because it will be more familiar
to her.

 

[KenSheridan via AccessMonster.com]

Mark:

MS Office Professional, which includes Access, would give your wife a full
range of applications for this. Using Access to store her client data would
not only enable here to use the data as the source for mail merges, but also
for creating other databases for managing her business. While there are
templates available for many types of business databases customizing these or
developing databases specific to her own requirements will involve learning
how to design a relational database with Access. Access is at the end of the
day a development environment and not so readily usable 'out of the box' as
Word or Excel for instance. Help is available here of course.

If your wife is not interested in developing databases for other business
uses beyond compiling a client list for mail merge purposes then MS Outlook
can be used for this without using Access. But the price differential (in
the UK at least) between the MS Office Small Business Edition and MS Office
Professional is relatively small and the inclusion of Access in the latter
would give her the potential for developing more ambitious database
applications for her business even if she is presently only looking towards
mail merging. Even if restricted to the latter, the use of Access gives
scope for automating mail merges and other Access to Word automation
operations on the basis of specific criteria from within an Access database
itself.

BTW I see that you've included your email addresses in your signature. A
word of warning on this; recognizable email addresses in a public newsgroup
like this can be harvested by automated software leading to your getting spam.
If you do give an email address then 'munge' it e.g.
mark_c_regan<AT>yahoo<DOT>com. Even then you should consider the possible
consequences. There are people who frequent newsgroups offering their
services 'at a reasonable cost' to inexperienced users. Their abilities are
usually open to question and they are immediately shot down by other
experienced people here for abusing the newsgroup. As you have given your
addresses you might find that you are contacted directly by such people. If
so be very wary of them. Experienced and reputable database developers do
not need to resort to underhand tactics to get work.

Ken Sheridan
Stafford, England