Predefined Templates

You may be surprised to discover that, in many cases, your database needs will not be as unique as you think. Or maybe parts of your database are common and other parts are unique. Why reinvent the wheel if you don’t have to?

Beginning with Access 2003, there are database templates available. If you select File | New, you will see the following pane open on the right side of the window:

Select Templates on Office Online. Your browser will open to the web page shown in Figure 3-11. Here you can select a number of templates for various Office applications, including Access. Many times, you may want to use the template as a starting point and then customize from there.

Figure 3-11: The Microsoft template web page

There is one other tool we should discuss to help you set up your application without doing a lot of programming—Switchboard Manager.