Microsoft Access 2010 Bible

Part I: Access Building Blocks

264

Working with Controls

Controls and properties form the basis of forms and reports. It’s critical to understand the funda-

mental concepts of controls and properties before you begin to apply them to custom forms and

reports.

Note
Although this chapter is about forms, you’ll learn that forms and reports share many common characteristics,
including controls and what you can do with them. As you learn about controls in this chapter, you’ll be able
to apply nearly everything you learn when you create reports.

The term control has many definitions in Access. Generally, a control is any object on a form or

report, such as a label or text box. These are the same sort of controls used in any Windows appli-

cation, such as Access, Excel, or Web-based HTML forms, or those that are used in any language,

such as .NET, Visual Basic, C++, or C#. Although each language or product has different file for-

mats and different properties, a text box in Access is similar to a text box in any other Windows

product.

You enter data into controls and display data using controls. A control can be bound to a field in a

table (when the value is entered in the control, it’s also saved in some underlying table field), or

data can be unbound and displayed in the form but not saved when the form is closed. A control

can also be an object, such as a line or rectangle.

Some controls that aren’t built into Access are developed separately — these are ActiveX controls.

ActiveX controls extend the basic feature set of Access and are available from a variety of vendors.

Whether you’re working with forms or reports, essentially the same process is followed to create

and use controls. In this chapter, I explain controls from the perspective of a form.

Categorizing controls

Forms and reports contain many different types of controls. You can add these controls to forms

using the Controls group on the Design tab, shown in Figure 7.13. Hovering the mouse over the

control displays a tooltip telling you what the control is.

FIGURE 7.13

The Design tab lets you add and customize controls in a form’s Design view.

Controls group Fields list

Property Sheet