Then I apologise for my assumption. I agree with your statement - choose the right tool for the job.

Understanding the principles of relational database design is a first step.

Yet another case of someone using excel as a quasi database. It should have just been done in Access in the first place. I, too, have done a lot in Access VBA - easy when you know how. The problem I've found in Excel VBA is that they named most 'things' differently. I haven't done any VBA for Winword, but the same issues probably arise. No doubt that different teams did the initial design for each program.