Database Templates with MySQL

Once you've built several MySQL databases, you'll learn some shortcuts to database design.

Many databases are very similar. When creating new databases, developers often build the same basic tables with only slightly different names and some adjustments to columns. Rather than starting from scratch when putting together a new database, developers will sometimes copy tables from an existing database, give them new names, and then make modifications. This can be a big timesaver.

The article continues at http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/2004/03/18/mysql_templates.html