Is this the application I need?

Welcome to Apple Discussions

If you're not already familiar with AppleWorks, I would not invest time, money & energy into learning it. It was declared "end-of-life" by Apple in August, 2008, & hasn't been updated at all since January, 2004.

If you're thinking of something as complex as Access, a relational database, FileMaker would probably be your best choice. Something simple would be Bento, also by FileMaker. You can get 30-day trials of both by visiting FileMaker.com. There are other databases available for the Mac & a search of this forum for may return some suggestions.

Unfortunately, there is not anything in between the complexity of FileMaker & the simplicity of Bento & with the functionality of AppleWorks.

Another one to look at is iList Data
http://www.lakewoodstudios.com/ilistdata/index.html

It does have pre-set templates to get you going as well.
The search functions are very flexible and powerful.
I bought it when moving from AppleWorks to iWork and as the data can be exported to a file which can be imported to Pages and Numbers as well as TextEdit it fits in well.

For the money I think it is very good value.

Chris

Looks promising. It's certainly more capable than Bento & much less expensive than FileMaker. I like that it saves as individual files - a major complaint I have against Bento. I see it can send reports/tables to Word or Excel. I'll have to see if I can get them into Pages & Numbers easily.

The only thing you have to beware of is NOT to use a Carriage Return if you use a something like a Notes field as it will upset the record length - see Preferences.
If you export the records it will import straight into Pages but may need to do some work on it depending on the format you want. In Numbers it is 1 row per record. It has some limitations but for the most part it is a rewarding program to use.

I have used it for 2 years now and having used database programs professionally going back to DBase consider this very good for what it is. I would like a bit more on the data presentation side but for the money.

I will be interested to know your views Peggy.

Chris