General :: External Form That Interfaces With Access

I'm looking for a form system that will interface with Access.

At present, we collect information from clients and store it in an Access 2003 database. I have designed my form as an Excel spreadsheet. I use Excel as we are missing the reference files that will enable Access to work with Word and some other programs. The Excel form is emailed to the client, who fills it in & emails it back to us.

To restrict entry of certain fields to a list of values, I use lists in the Excel Workbook, which emulate the lookup tables in Access. I am expecting to add more values to the lookup tables, which would mean that I have to constantly update the lists on the Excel spreadsheet, with the lists eventually becoming quite large.

I have written an import program in Access which imports the Excel worksheet/s into the relevant Access tables. This all works, except the entire process is very manual.

What I would like is to use an external form program that would do the following:

1. Allow me to design something that looks nicer than a spreadsheet
2. Can be updated with my lookup tables so I don't have to manually edit the lists (as in Excel)
3. Can be imported into Access (export to an xls or csv file would be ok if not into Access)
4. Is portable, self-contained & can be emailed to the client so doesn't require them to log into any of our systems, including our web site. The user can fill it out with the data being validated at the same time & then return it to us.