Databases

Unit 3: Advanced Data Entry and Viewing

Lesson 6: Creating a Database Form

How do you edit a form from the Form Design view?

In an earlier lesson we showed how to create an AutoForm. The result, while functional, provides only a modest improvement over Datasheet view for working with records. The real benefit of using a form is the opportunity to design the form so that it matches a physical form or the logical view of the data.

There are lots of options for editing a form in Form Design view. In this lesson we will cover only three simple edit commands:

Moving a field.
Resizing a field.
Adding a label.

The following animation demonstrates each of these commands.

Editing a form in Form Design view

Some things to notice in the above animation:

You can open a form in Design view or switch to Form Design view with the View toolbar button .
When you switch to Form Design view a toolbox appears (see image on the left). This toolbox contains a number of controls you can add to a form. Hold the cursor over a specific control in the toolbox for a short description of the control. In this lesson we use only the label control from the toolbox.
When you select a control in the design window, handles appear around the control and its label. These handles are used to move and resize the control.
When the cursor turns into a hand you may click and drag the control and its label.
The handle in the upper left-hand corner of a control is special. When you position the cursor over this handle it turns into a finger . When you click and drag the handle in the upper left-hand corner the control moves independently.

(The purpose of this lesson is to demonstrate editing techniques rather than good form design techniques. A better design would be to use a combo box control for the type field rather than place on the form the expected field values.)

Note: You will see later that the tools and techniques discussed here are also used to edit a report.