Microsoft® Access® 2010 Programmer's Reference

Chapter 4. Macros in Access 2010

WHAT'S IN THIS CHAPTER?

• When to use Macros in an Access application

• An in depth look at the new Macro Designer in Access 2010

• How to leverage data macros that add logic to tables and enable new scenarios that don't require VBA code

For many years, Access has supported two different ways of accomplishing programming tasks — Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) and macros. The term "macro" as it relates to other Office applications such as Word or Excel, typically refers to VBA. In Access, however, the term "macro" means something else entirely.

Compared with VBA, a macro in Access provides a reduced set of functionality for achieving certain tasks. These tasks might be as simple as opening a form or report, or something more complex such as running a series of queries in a particular order and then exporting the data to Excel. In some situations, one of these tasks may also include calling into VBA code.

This chapter starts out by covering some of the basic differences between VBA and macros in Access 2010. We'll take a look at scenarios in which using macros may be more interesting than using VBA and review some of the many new features that are available related to macros in Access 2010. Finally, we take a look at some common scenarios in which you might use macros in Access and how to write these macros. These examples will be in the Access 2010 macro format, and not in VBA code.

VBA VERSUS MACROS IN ACCESS

The majority of this book takes a look at using ...