Have you ever noticed the standard splash screens that pop-up in many applications and wondered how you could create a splash screen to replace the original and customize your database file to your own brand?

This method that I’m going to show and step you through requires no programming at all (i.e. Access VBA) just some effort in creating a nice looking graphics file you wish to replace using something like Photoshop or even the standard MS Paint utility.

In this exercise, I’ going to use MS Word as the graphics editor tool to create various shapes arranged together and then snap a screenshot of this file to create a 24-bit BMP file using MS Paint (or in any other BMP file format).

How To Create A Splash Screen In Access – The Steps

1. Spend some time creating the image you wish to replace. This is probably going to take the longest amount of time working on this part of this simple procedure and depending on your skills and tools available it’s difficult to measure how long.

I use Microsoft Word’s shapes and added an image I had used elsewhere and re-arranged them to some suitable look (see image above). I’m not a graphic designer and the simplest way to have some screen shot is probably to use your company logo or branding for the application which you may already be using elsewhere – just add some text perhaps the title of the database file.

The file format that must be used to create a splash screen for Access needs to be a bit-map (BMP) and if you are using the later versions of Windows then save it as a 24-bit BMP which retains the quality of the image as other BMP file versions may lose some of the quality.

2. The important point here is to make sure you save this file in same folder location as the database (mdb or accdb) file to which it belongs and with the same named file too.

Therefore, if your database is called StockControlSystem.accdb, then your image file must be named StockControlSystem.bmp – simple as that!

3. Close any Access application and then launch your database file (from either Windows Explorer or a shortcut icon) and see your splash screen appear instead.

At any time you can of course revisit and change your image should you decide on a newer more professional look and feel – if that’s something you really care about!

Final point to note here is that with faster PC hardware the splash screen may appear and then vanish very quickly due to the high performance equipment and processor and if you want to delay this action and add any interaction too then we are looking at a different approach altogether using Access forms and VBA code – for another time perhaps!

Feel free to add your comments below and share any experiences you may have had using this technique or any alternative way to create a splash screen.

Tags: Access, create a splash screen, customing your access application, how to create a start up screen, loading custom access splash sccreen, ms access start up