Part I: Access Building Blocks
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Using the Undo Feature
The Undo button on the Quick Access toolbar is often dimmed because there’s nothing to undo.
As soon as you begin editing a record, however, you can use this button to undo the typing in the
current field. You can also undo a change with the Esc key; pressing Esc cancels either a changed
value or the previously changed field. Pressing Esc twice undoes changes to the entire current
record.After you type a value into a field, click the Undo button to undo changes to that value. After you
move to another field, you can undo the change to the preceding field’s value by clicking the Undo
button. You can also undo all the changes to an unsaved current record by clicking the Undo button
after you undo a field. After you save a record, you can still undo the changes by clicking the Undo
button. However, after the next record is edited, changes to the previous record are permanent.Caution
Don’t rely on the Undo command to save you after you edit multiple records. When working in a datasheet,
changes are saved when you move from record to record and you can only undo changes to the current record.
Copying and Pasting Values
Copying or cutting data to the Clipboard is a Microsoft Windows task; it isn’t a specific function of
Access. After you cut or copy a value, you can paste into another field or record by using the Paste
command in the ribbon’s Clipboard group. You can cut, copy, or paste data from any Windows
application or from one task to another in Access. Using this technique, you can copy entire
records between tables or databases, and you can copy datasheet values to and from Word and
Excel.Some fields can’t be edited, such as:l (^) AutoNumber fields: Access maintains AutoNumber fields automatically, calculating the val-
ues as you create each new record. AutoNumber fields can be used as the primary key.
l (^) Calculated fields: Forms or queries may contain fields that are the result of expressions. These
values are not actually stored in your table and are not editable.
l (^) Locked or disabled fields: You can set certain properties in a form to prevent editing for a
specific field.
l (^) Fields in multiuser locked records: If another user locks the record, you can’t edit any fields
in that record.
Fields that you can’t edit