To enable people to view and manipulate your database information over an intranet or the Internet, you can create pages, also known as data access pages. Working with a data access page on the World Wide Web is very much like working directly with a table or form in Access—users can work with the data in tables, run queries, and enter information in forms.

Although publishing database information on the Web seems like a fairly difficult task, Access provides a wizard that does most of the tedious work of creating data access pages for you. You can use a wizard-generated page as-is, or you can add your own personal touch in Design view.

You use macros to have Access respond to an event, such as the click of a button, the opening of a form, or the updating of a record. Macros can be particularly handy when you expect that other people who are less experienced with Access than you will work in your database. For example, you can make routine database actions, such as opening and closing forms or printing reports, available as command buttons on switchboards. And by grouping together an assortment of menu commands and having users carry them out by using a macro with the click of a button, you can ensure that everyone does things the same way.

More powerful than macros, modules are Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) programs. VBA is a high-level programming language developed by Microsoft for the purpose of creating Windows programs. A common set of VBA instructions can be used with all programs in The Microsoft Office System, and each program has its own set as well. Whereas macros can automate four to five dozen actions, VBA includes hundreds of commands and can be extended indefinitely with third-party add-ins. You could use VBA to carry out tasks that are too complex to be handled with macros, such as opening an Excel spreadsheet and retrieving specific information.