Conventions Used in This Book

The following typographic conventions are used in this book:

• Code lines, commands, statements, variables, and any text you type or see onscreen appear in a monospace typeface.

• Italics highlight technical terms when they're being defined.

• You'll come across a lot of syntax statements where arguments are italicized and often enclosed in brackets. The italicized text values are arguments. You replace these with values that are relevant to the task at hand. Brackets denote optional arguments.

Throughout the book we've included some helpful features to make it easier for you to learn to use VBA quickly and effectively:

Cross-references show you where to find related information in other chapters of the book.

CAUTION

Cautions warn you of potentially confusing or damaging side effects to running code. This might be anything from unexpected behavior when you do things in the wrong order to a new way to lose data.

TIP

Tip paragraphs offer our tips and tricks for making effective use of VBA in Access 2003. If you apply the knowledge from these paragraphs, we think you'll find VBA to be a productive language.

NOTE

Notes provide additional notes or background on VBA features. These tidbits of information can help you understand what's going on when you run VBA code, or point you to additional resources when you want to learn more.

Many of the chapters in this book end with a case study. These case studies are extended examples that show you how to apply the tools and techniques from the chapter in a business setting. We've designed the case studies to help you understand why you're learning VBA, and to provide inspiration for automating your own databases.