Part I: Access Building Blocks
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l (^) h: Displays the hour using one or two digits (0–23)
l hh: Displays the hour using two digits (00–23)
l (^) n: Displays the minutes using one or two digits (0–59)
l nn: Displays the minutes using two digits (00–59)
l (^) s: Displays the seconds using one or two digits (0–59)
l ss: Displays the seconds using two digits (00–59)
l (^) tttt: Uses the built-in Long Time format
l AM/PM: Uses a 12-hour format with uppercase AM or PM
l (^) am/pm: Uses a 12-hour format with lowercase am or pm
l A/P: Uses a 12-hour format with uppercase A or P
l (^) a/p: Uses a 12-hour format with lowercase a or p
l AMPM: 12-hour format using the morning or after designator specified in the Regional
Settings in the Windows Control Panel
Text and Memo field formats
When applied to Text fields, format specifiers help clarify the data contained within the fields.
tblCustomers uses several formats. The State text field has a > in the Format property to
display the data entry in uppercase. The Active field has a Yes/No format with lookup
Display Control property set to Text Box.
Text and Memo fields are displayed as plain text by default. If a particular format is to be applied
to Text or Memo field data, use the following symbols to construct the format specifier:
l @: A character or space is required.
l (^) &: A character is optional (not required).
l <: Force all characters to their lowercase equivalents.
l (^) >: Force all characters to their uppercase equivalents.
The custom format specifier may contain as many as three different sections, separated by semicolons:
l (^) First section: Specifier for fields containing text
l Second section: Format for fields containing zero-length strings
l (^) Third section: Format for fields containing null values
If only two sections are given, the second section applies to both zero-length strings and null val-
ues. For example, the following specifier displays None when no string data is contained in the
field and Unknown when a null value exists in the field. Otherwise, the simple text contained in
the field is displayed:
@;”None”;”Unknown”