Overview

Whether you are creating a database for personal use, departmental use, or an entire organization, Microsoft Access 2002 offers a set of tools rich enough for the most experienced database developer, yet accessible enough for first-time users. By incorporating the innovations of Office XP, as well as introducing productivity and collaboration features such as the Data Access Page Designer and XML support, Access 2002 helps you store, organize, and share your data, so you and your team can make better decisions.

Benefits

• Embrace the Web
  As business processes move to the Web at an increasing pace, users and organizations are demanding compelling, useful functionality from Internet and intranet applications. Businesses are demanding that the Web to solve real business problems and show a demonstrable positive impact on productivity. Access 2002 provides the tools to build solutions that integrate and leverage Internet standards to better allow for the sharing and presentation of data across the Internet and intranet.
• Integrate data sources across the enterprise
  In an integrated application environment, business applications communicate seamlessly with one another. One of the key goals of Access 2002 is to provide an integrated application environment, which enables users to perform query and analysis of enterprise data sources from the familiar, easy-to-use Office interface.
• Remain agile
  Ultimately, all businesses require the agility to respond to their rapidly changing marketplace. The new technologies and features of Access 2002 help businesses be more agile by enabling users to unlock the power of the organization's data. Using Access 2002, corporations can build data-driven business solutions quickly and deploy those applications into the environment that their end-users are using every day.

Features

Conditional Formatting
Conditional Formatting provides support for negative and positive numbers, and values that can be expressed as less than, greater than, between, or equal to. In addition, users will be able to format based on user-defined functions. Based on the value, the user can set font, styles, banners and colors.

Name AutoCorrect
This feature automatically resolves the common side effects that occur when a user renames a database object. For example, when a user renames a field in a table, the change is automatically propagated to dependent objects such as Queries and Forms so the user can continue to work with the application.

Convert Database to Prior Access Version
Access users can now down-rev save a database into a previous version of Access, making it easier to share database files with users of different versions.

Database Window
The database window was changed to accommodate the new objects exposed in Access 2002, to enhance usability and to be consistent with the new user interface metaphor used throughout Office XP.

Subdatasheets
Subdatasheets provide a picture-in-picture view to focus on and edit related data all in the same window.

Drag-and-Drop to Excel
Users can now export data from Microsoft Access to Microsoft Excel simply by dragging and dropping Access objects (tables, queries, etc.) from the database container to Microsoft Excel. This allows a fast way to export data into Excel quickly for further analysis.

Form Enhancements
Now it�s even easier to make changes, such as colors or fonts, to fields directly from within the Form view.

Print Relationships Wizard
Access offers the ability to print a visual diagram of the Relationships window, which makes it easier for users to see how the database is structured.

Control Grouping
This functionality allows users to group controls as a single unit to make form design easier.

Report Snapshot
Users can create snapshots of Access 2002 reports that can be distributed to a disk, printer, Web page or e-mail.

Compact on Close
Access 2002 automatically compresses a database when the file is closed if the reduction in disk space is significant. This ensures that Access databases are as small as possible. Users can set the disk space reduction threshold.

Northwind Sample Database
For users who need advice about a particular feature or just want to see an example, the Northwind database -- a fully functioning database -- ships with Access and provides several examples of the latest features for users to see or copy.

Data Access Pages
This feature allows users to extend database applications to the corporate intranet by creating data-bound HTML pages quickly and easily. This will help users share information faster and more efficiently than ever.

Grouped Data Access Pages
This provides the ability to view and manage related information, such as sales by region and sales from a particular sales representative. The data appears in a collapsible hierarchical format when creating Data Access Pages.

Data Access Pages Toolbox
A toolbox is provided in the Data Access Page design environment for creating controls. Users can easily drag-and-drop each tool as needed.

Field List
The Field List enables users to easily add information to a Data Access Page view simply by dragging-and-dropping the field names from an easily accessible list. Each field is bound to the data by maintaining a direct live link to the data from the Data Access Page.

Hyperlink Handling
Access 2002 offers an improved hyperlink interface to make it easier to create, edit, follow and remove hyperlinks in databases.

Integration of Shared Components
Access takes advantage of the new Office Web Components and COM controls that reside within the browser to provide users with several ways to view and analyze data.

Microsoft SQL Server Interoperability
Microsoft Access 2002 supports OLE DB, allowing users to combine the ease of use of the Access interface with the scalability of back-end enterprise databases, such as Microsoft SQL Server.

Microsoft Access Project
The Access interface can create a new file type (.adp) that connects directly to the integrated store available in Office, SQL Server 6.5, or SQL Server 7.0. This makes it simple for Access users to create true client/server applications using the familiar interface in Access.

Microsoft Access Project Wizards
Many popular Access wizards have been updated to support the new Access Project tasks, such as creating a new database, report, or form.

Microsoft Access Project Design Tools
When working in a Microsoft Access Project file (.adp), new design tools allow users to easily create and manage server side objects including tables, views, stored procedures and database diagrams.

Microsoft SQL Server Administration Tools
Microsoft Access 2000 allows users to perform and manage common Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 administration tasks, such as replication, backup and restore, and security.

Unicode Support
Unicode support allows multinational corporations to support applications in different language versions.

Visual Basic for Applications
The latest version of VBA is included with Access 2002 and shared throughout the Office suite, putting VBA on par with features in the Visual Basic development system.