microsoft access to web pages

Is it possible to use Access to create web pages? Let's say I have 20 pages that have the same layout but different content (ie- different address, different phone, etc...). I want the webpages to retrieve the information from the database rather than me having to hardcode each one.

Would it be possible to use Access to create a database that stores the info, then creates the page rather than having to hardcode it?

Thanks in advance

New for Access 2010 is the ability to build web sites. If you look at the following video, note how at the half way point, I switch to running the Access application 100% in a web browser.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AU4mH0jPntI

There several things to keep in mind when building web forms with Access 2010. The forms cannot have VBA, but must use macro code. This macro code is converted into JavaScript and does run inside of the browser. The resulting forms are standard .net XAML (zammel) forms. Server side code is possbile with writing data macros.

The Access reports you publish to the web are rendered` using SQL server reporting services. To use Access web services you need SharePoint or wait until office 365 comes out which will also support publishing of Access web applications. (so, just like there will be web based versons of Excel and word, there also a web based version of Access).

Since the resulting forms and reports are based on .net technology, then the resulting application scale VERY well horizontally (large number of users). The resulting applications do not require activeX or Silverlight (I tested them and they run fine on my iPad for example). Last but not least, there is no covert utility for existing VBA forms to web forms, you have to create new forms in Access that are designated as to be web forms. The new web based applications can have a mix of VBA forms, and web forms in them now.

MS Access is a database that can power your web application. You need to write a web application in ASP.NET (ASP, PHP, Java, Python etc) that connects to your database, retrieves and displays data.

If you are not a programmer check PHPRunner that can build full PHP code for all your tables in minutes.

For building a website, you can use Access in one of two ways:

1. as an application builder with A2010, as described by Albert Kallal. This is entirely dependent on Sharepoint (the expensive Enterprise version, though it can also be done with hosted Sharepoint). and requires that you limit your Access app to those things that are supported in web objects.

2. as a data store only (i.e., using Jet/ACE instead of Access), driving an application built in PHP or ASP.NET or whatever. I would not recommend this as Jet/ACE is not well-suited to use with a web server, except for read-only sites, or sites with very, very few users.

The dependency on Sharepoint is likely to make that an unacceptable solution, while the limitations of the Jet/ACE database engine make its use as data store only not really a good choice.

So, basically, I think you should choose a different database back end (MySQL, SQL Server, PostgreSQL) and build your application with PHP or ASP/ASP.NET or whatever is available.

In other words, there's still no magic bullet with converting an Access app to run on the web.

However, if the real problem is making the app available to many people in different locations, you might drop the web requirement and simply host it on Windows Terminal Server.

I've never heard of Access handling web requests. I guess the bigger question is, what would be gained from an approach like this? Access is a database, let it do the job of a database. It would be considerably better design and easier to support to just use it as a database backing a web site, which itself could then be written in any number of languages/technologies.

A simple .NET website with an MS Access back-end would most likely be the best way to go here.

Another possibility is, if the web pages seldom change, then use Access to create the HTML pages as text files. Then upload those files to your web server.

You would create the page in memory using VBA string handling along with vbCrLfs to separate the lines. Use the print # statement to create the lines in the file.

This technique would be suitable for pages that change say weekly or monthly or similar.