Beginning Access™ 2007 VBA

1.2. What's New in Access 2007 VBA?

Access 2007, in general, has changed substantially from Access 2003, although Access 2007 VBA has not changed much from Access 2003 VBA. One significant change with Access 2007 is the introduction of a new ACCDB file format, instead of the MDB file format of the past. Another significant change to Access 2007 and all other Office 2007 programs in general is the new user interface design. The new user interface for Access 2007 uses ribbons on the toolbar that replace the layers of menus and toolbars found in earlier releases. Actions or options on the ribbons are grouped together in a logical fashion based on the task they accomplish. While the user interface for Access 2007 has changed significantly, the Visual Basic Editor for Access 2007 has remained mostly unchanged. The Visual Basic Editor opens in a separate window from Access 2007. In developing a VBA application, you will work with both Access 2007 and the Visual Basic Editor.

Some examples of the additional changes to Access 2007 in general (but not Visual Basic for Applications) include:

• Templates – Many prebuilt templates are included to get you started quickly with certain common applications.

• Rich text in memo fields – Text can now be formatted with options, such as bold, italic, colors, and the like.

• Navigation pane – The navigation pane replaces the old database window and contains all of the database objects, such as tables, forms, and so on. What is interesting about the navigation ...