Computer Act!ve - UK (2022-05-11)

14 pages of easy-to-follow workshops and expert tips

Workshops & Tips

HOW TO...

35

PLUS

35

1

Create your first

database

When you launch LibreOffice

Base, the first screen asks if you want to

create a new database, open an existing

database, or connect to an existing

database. Leave the first of these selected,

with ‘HSQLDB Embedded’ shown in the

‘Embedded database’ dropdown menu.

Click ‘Next’ and leave both ‘Yes,

register the database for me’, and ‘Open

the database for editing’ selected, then

click Finish.

You need to save your new database,

so navigate to your Documents folder,

type media in the filename box, then

click Save.

If you’re using a database for the first

time, some of the terms on the next

page will be unfamiliar – particularly,

the distinction between Tables, Queries,

Forms and Reports.

2

Build a table

With ‘Tables’ selected in the

sidebar, click ‘Use Wizard to

Create Table...’, followed by Personal,

then select DVD-Collection on the

menu beneath ‘Sample tables’ (^1 in our

screenshot). You don’t need all the fields

in the template, so click Notes, then hold

Ctrl while also clicking Length, Rating,

Tables are the containers for your data,

with rows and columns for the records

and fields respectively. Queries are the

questions you ask your database, such as

‘did I enjoy The Godfather?’, ‘how long

is Casablanca?, or ‘which is the shortest

film in my collection?’ (although you

don’t simply type these as you would

in Google). Saving queries lets you

reuse them, which, for the last of those

questions, would always deliver a fresh

result, even if you’ve expanded your

collection recently.

Forms are used to present your data

in more attractive and useful ways by

extracting the rows and columns from

a table and slotting the variables into

boxes in a layout. Reports are similar

to Forms because they make your data

visible and comprehensible, but while

the data in a form can be edited, it’s read-

only when in a report.

W

hile spreadsheets are great for

listing data in columns and

rows, and they’re easy to search

if you want to find a single record, they’re

less useful when you need to identify

patterns or sets. If you used one to log

your DVDs, for example, how long would

it take you to extract a list of only those

films lasting 100 minutes or less, already

sorted with your favourites coming first?

To run a query like that, you really

need a database. Here, we’ll show

you how to do that with LibreOffice

Base. You could achieve the same in

Microsoft Access, if you have it, but as

it’s not included in the Home edition

What you need: LibreOffice Base Time required: Two hours or more

Catalogue items in

LibreOffice Base

Pull Out

& Keep

Issue 631

44 Phone & Tablet Tips

46 Make Windows

Better

47 Make Office Better

48 In the Club: Merge two

spreadsheets

35 Catalogue items in

LibreOffice Base

38 Add tabs to File

Explorer

40 Readers’ Tips

42 Browser Tips:

Add notes to your

saved passwords

of Microsoft Office (www.snipca.

com/41632), we opted for Base, a free

download from http://www.libreoffice.org.

We’ll explain how to catalogue and

search DVDs, but you can apply these

instructions for anything you collect or

gather information on, such as books,

cars, recipes, TV shows or aeroplanes.

Select a sample table, then pick the fields you

want to add

1

(^23)
Issue 631 • 11 – 24 May 2022
by Nik Rawlinson