• Office Access 2007 employs a new user interface designed from the ground up to help make you more productive. You can work faster, learn faster, and find faster. The new interface uses a standard area called the ribbon that replaces the layers of menus and toolbars found in earlier releases of Access.
  
  
• Major new interface elements in Office Access 2007 include:
  
  
  Getting Started with Microsoft Office Access window: The new startup experience that is displayed when you start Access from the Start menu or a desktop shortcut.
  
  The ribbon: The area at the top of the program window where you can choose commands.
  
  Command tab: Commands are displayed and combined so that you can find commands you need when you need them.
  
  Contextual command tab: A command tab that appears depending on your context : the object that you are working on or the task that you are performing. This tab contains the commands most likely to apply to what you are doing.
  
  Gallery: A new control that displays a choice visually, so that you can see the results that you will get. Galleries are employed throughout the 2007 Microsoft Office system interface. They let you choose a result without having to worry about how you get it.
  
  Quick Access Toolbar: A single standard toolbar that appears in the ribbon offering instant, single-click access to the most needed commands, such as Save and Undo.
  
  Navigation Pane: The area on the left side of the window that displays database objects. The Navigation Pane replaces the Database window from earlier versions of Access.
  
  Tabbed documents: Your tables, queries, forms, reports, and macros are displayed as tabbed documents.
  Status bar: The bar at the bottom of the window that displays status information and includes buttons that let you switch views.
  
  Mini toolbar: A toolbar-like element that transparently appears above text that you have selected, so that you can easily apply formatting, such as bold or italic, or change the font.

• Each template is a complete tracking application, with predefined tables, forms, reports, queries, macros, and relationships. The templates are designed to be immediately useful out-of-the-box so that you can get up and running quickly. If the template design meets your needs, you are ready to go! If not, you can use the template to get a head start in creating the database that meets your specific need.
  
  
• Office Access 2007 includes a collection of database templates in the box. You can also use the Getting Started with Microsoft Office Access window to connect to Microsoft Office Online and download the latest new or revised templates.
  
  
• The templates provided include: Assets, Contacts, Events, Faculty, Issues, Marketing, Projects, Project Tracking, Sales, Pipeline, Students, Tasks, Time and Billing Tracking.

• Forms and reports often contain tabular information, such as a column that contains customer names or a row that contains all of the fields for a customer. You can use Office Access 2007 to group these controls into a layout that can easily be manipulated as one unit, including the label. Because you can select controls from different sections, such as the label in the section header or footer, you have considerable flexibility. You can easily:
  
  
  Move or resize a layout. For example, move a column to the left or right.
  
  Format a layout. For example, set a customer name column in bold so that it stands out.
  
  Add a column (field) to a layout.
  
  Delete a column (field) from a layout.
  
  
• Layouts are saved with your design, so they remain available.

Enhanced quick create by using the Insert tab
The Insert tab on the ribbon is the new main starting point for adding new objects. Quickly create new forms, reports, tables, SharePoint lists, queries, macros, modules, and more. The creation process takes into account the active object, so if you have a table open, you can create a new form based on that table in just two mouse clicks. The new forms and reports are more visually appealing and immediately useful, because their design has been upgraded. For example, automatically generated forms and reports get professional looking designs with headers that include a logo, a title, and for reports, a date and time; not to mention informative footers and totals.

You will find that objects created by using the new quick create experience take you farther with less effort.

Quickly create tables by using the improved datasheet view
Creating tables is now easier - just click Table on the Insert tab and start entering data in the improved Datasheet view. Office Access 2007 automatically determines the data type, so you are up and running in no time. With the new Add New Field column, it becomes obvious where you can easily add a field - and if you need to change the data type or display format, it is easy to do so by using the ribbon. You can even paste Excel tables into a new datasheet, and Office Access 2007 creates all of the fields and recognizes the data types automatically.

Need to add a customer ID field to your orders table? Just drag a field from the new Field List pane onto the datasheet to add a field from another table, and Access automatically creates any needed relationships or prompts you throughout the process.

Multivalued fields
You can create a field that holds multiple values. Suppose that you want to store a list of categories to which you have assigned an item. In most database management systems and in earlier versions of Access, you have to model a many-to-many relationship in order to do this correctly. In Office Access 2007, the hard part is done for you when you choose a multivalued field. Multivalued fields are especially appropriate when you use Office Access 2007 to work with a SharePoint list that contains one of the multivalued field types used in Windows SharePoint Services. Office Access 2007 is compatible with these data types.

Attachment data type for storing pictures, graphics, Office files, or any type of file
The new Attachment data type lets you easily store all types of documents and binary files in your database without unnecessary database bloat. Attachments are automatically compressed when appropriate to maximize space usage. Do you need to attach a Microsoft Office Word 2007 document to a record? Want to save a series of digital pictures in your database? Attachments make these tasks much easier. You can even have multiple attachments attached to a single record.

Migrating to Microsoft Office 2007