Part I: Access Building Blocks
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Caution
Checking Search Fields As Formatted may slow the search process.
The search begins when you click the Find Next button. If Access finds the value, the cursor high-
lights it in the datasheet. To find the next occurrence of the value, click the Find Next button
again. The dialog box remains open so that you can find multiple occurrences. Choose one of three
search direction choices (Up, Down, or All) in the Search drop-down list to change the search
direction. When you find the value that you want, click Close to close the dialog box.Use the search box at the bottom of the Datasheet window (refer to Figure 6.1) to quickly search
for the first instance of a value. When using the search box, Access searches the entire datasheet for
the value in any part of the field. If you enter FORD in the search box, the datasheet moves to the
closest match as you type each letter. First, it finds a field with F as the first character, then it finds
FO and so on. Once it finds the complete value, it stops searching. To find more than one instance,
use the Find Next button in the upper-left corner of the Find and Replace dialog box.Changing Values in a Datasheet
If the field that you’re in has no value, you can type a new value into the field. When you enter
new values into a field, follow the same rules as for a new-record entry.Manually replacing an existing value
Generally, you enter a field with either no characters selected or the entire value selected. If you
use the keyboard (Tab or Arrow keys) to enter a field, you select the entire value. (You know that
the entire value is selected when it’s displayed in reverse video.) When you begin to type, the new
content replaces the selected value automatically.When you click in a field, the value is not selected. To select the entire value with the mouse, use
any of these methods:l Click just to the left of the value when the cursor is shown as a large plus sign.l (^) Click to the left of the value, hold down the left mouse button, and drag the mouse to
select the whole value.
l (^) Click in the field and press F2.
Tip
You may want to replace an existing value with the value from the field’s Default Value property. To do so,
select the value and press Ctrl+Alt+Spacebar. To replace an existing value with that of the same field from the
preceding record, press Ctrl+’ (single quote mark). Press Ctrl+; (semicolon) to place the current date in a field.