You can store information in a database and view, sort, and retrieve the information in various ways.

Here are some examples of databases:

•	a list of friends with addresses, other contact information, birthdays, anniversaries, scanned photographs, and other personal information
•	a list of students, student identification numbers, and grades
•	a home inventory list with pictures, prices paid, and warranty information
•	a party planner with guest names, whether they will attend, and gifts received

The first step in creating a database is determining what fields you need. A field holds a category of information. For example, in a phone book database, name, address, and phone number are all possible fields.

Once you define your fields, you add records. A record is a set of fields. For example, each person in the phone book is a record. Each record contains fields with the person's name, address, and phone number.

Layouts allow you to view the data in different ways. One database can have multiple layouts that each contain different fields. For example, you can have one layout that lists complete addresses, and another that lists only names and phone numbers.

You can view database documents in four different modes (available in the Layout menu). Each mode allows you to work with the database in a different way:

	Choose		To do this
	Browse		Enter and edit data in fields; view, add, delete, or sort records
	Find		Search for records that match specified criteria
	Layout		Design or modify the arrangement of data in a layout
	List		See data displayed like a spreadsheet, with records in rows and fields in columns. You can do the same things in List mode that you can do in Browse mode.

Related topic

Database keyboard shortcuts