Laura,
Access is not all that difficult to learn and can be quite fun. That is
not to say you may find it frustrating at times.
I have marked certain elements below in bold because they are parts of a
database that you would need to learn to use.

A Table is the heart of the database where all data is stored.
A Field contains one element of an address.
A Record contains all the elements of one persons address.
A Form is what you see on your computer monitor and would contain a list
of all Records.
A Report is what is printed out - in your case the mailing labels.

What you would need to do is open a sample database that comes with
Access and see how it fits together. One comes to mind - Northwind. One
good thing about Access is that you can export elements of a database
and import them into another database. So if you like a form in
Northwind you can take it and use it in your database. Northwind comes
with Access.
For your needs you would need to create a table with fields for names
and addresses. Something like:
Title, initials, Surname, Address1, Address2, Address3, City, State, ZIP
The order of the fields is immaterial.
Then create a form that displays these fields in the order that you
prefer. This is the part you see on the monitor. You can use this form
to enter the data from your snail mail by cut and past or create another
form to do that. I presume you will be scanning the mail and using
Omnipage or some other program to decipher it. You would need to put the
address elements in the order of the table if you automated data entry.
So give some thought to the order before you start.
You would then create a report that would print your mailing labels.
The above is the basic way to do it. Once you feel confident with Access
you can automate entering addresses as long as you set them up with each
field separated by a comma. You can then append the data to an existing
table as long as the first row of your text file matches the table's
field names.

If you want more help email me direct.

Orf Bartrop


Laura Bruzas wrote:

>3 quick questions.
>
>1) Outlook doesn't have the capacity to capture snail mail addresses
>and create mailing labels. It's mostly for email addresses.  TRUE or FALSE
>
>2) Microsoft Access is easy to learn and one doesn't need to hire a pro
>to help them set up a database.  TRUE or FALSE
>
>3) If someone wanted to hire an Access pro, where would they look?
>
>Laura Bruzas
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