Hello,
I taught myself Access so I could use it for one thing: to create a database of recipes. To be clear, the recipes (instructions for cooking) aren't in the database; rather, it consists of names of many recipes, along with metadata for each one to allow me to search for recipes that meet certain criteria.
So far this has worked pretty well, but there are two types of database searches I'd like to be able to do that I haven't been able to make work.
First: I want to be able to filter the recipes to list only the ones that contain all of the ingredients I'm interested in. For example, I might want a list of all of the recipes in the database that contain parsley AND lemon AND tomatoes. But, I can't figure out a (remotely easy) was to filter by more than one ingredient at a time. This is what I did: I created a field called "Key Ingredients". For each recipe listing I populated this field with the key ingredients in it, each term separated by a comma (no spaces). Then I perform my search by selecting the column for the field, selecting Text filters -> Contains..., and keying in the one key ingredient I'm interested in. Apparently Boolean operators aren't available for this kind of filter, so I can't do the search for recipes that contain ALL of multiple ingredients. Or is there? Or should I have gone about this in a whole different way?
Second: A similar problem to the first. Another field I've created is called "Diet Compatibility". Unlike Key Ingredients, which allows entry of any text, this field has defined lookups that are selected with check boxes: "Vegetarian", "Vegan", "Gluten-Free", and the like. I want to be able to view only the recipes that have all of Diet Compatibility types I'm interested in at a given time. For example, I might want a list of all recipes that are BOTH vegan AND gluten-free. Again, it doesn't seem like I can do this kind of Boolean operation within a single field. I know I can create separate fields for every diet compatibility type I want and do my filtering using those multiple fields, but I'd rather not do it in this cumbersome way. Anyone know how I can do this the way I want to?
Thanks in advance for any help!