Forms are a key part of the daily transactions in many offices. Workers use forms to place orders, make requests, propose changes, and do other administrative tasks. As an administrative professional, you often have to both create the forms and manage their use. Unfortunately, paper forms can cause problems related to printing, routing, obtaining signatures, filing, and so on. What if there were a way for you to create, deploy, route, and even sign forms entirely online? Thanks to Microsoft Office InfoPath 2003, there is a way.

This practice includes detailed, hands-on information to help you get started designing a form in InfoPath. You can design a form from scratch in order to suit the specific needs of your office. You can put together a form for office supply requisitions by following the provided tutorial. Need an example to work from? You've got it — an InfoPath office supply requisitions form template that you can modify or use as is.

If you already use a Microsoft Office Access 2003 database to store forms-related information, you're in luck: InfoPath forms can work with your database. Learn how with a walk-through tutorial.

With the following information, you can learn to design online forms and begin to pave the way for a more convenient forms-management process in your office.

• Forms and form templates: Understanding InfoPath file types (Article)
  Learn about the fundamentals of InfoPath form design.
• Create an InfoPath form for office supply requisitions (Article)
  Design an InfoPath office supply requisitions form with these instructions from Annette Marquis of TRIAD Consulting.
• Supply requisition form (Template)
  Jump-start a more efficient office supply requisitions process by using this InfoPath template.
• About designing new, blank forms (Article)
  Design an InfoPath form that best suits your needs.
• Publish a form template (Article)
  Publish your form so that it's available to your team.
• How-to guide: Connecting an InfoPath form to an Access database (Article)
  Get specific information about how to make your InfoPath form work with Access.
• Connect a form to a database (Training)
  Follow step-by-step instructions to use InfoPath to design a form that's connected to an Access database.