UNDERSTANDING ACCESS WIZARDS, BUILDERS, AND ADD-INS

You've likely seen the terms wizards, builders, and add-ins used in quite a few places, including in this book. You might be somewhat confused as to which is which.

Wizards and builders can be add-ins. An add-in is a tool that's not part of the main Access product, but gives additional capability. Some add-ins included with Access fall into three categories:

• Wizards are generally multi-page forms that help you create an object or perform tasks step by step. Access uses wizards to create new instances of all the major objects, including forms, reports, tables, queries, and Data Access Pages. Figure 17.1 shows an example of a wizard. Other examples are the Table and Performance Analyzers, which started out as add-ins from the Add-ins menu but were later incorporated into the product.

  Figure 17.1. Using a wizard to create a report gives you a great start with a standard look and feel.

  

• Builders are generally single-page wizards that can be attached to a property or command. An example of a builder is the Input Mask Wizard.