Microsoft Access 2010 Bible

Chapter 8: Working with Data on Access Forms .........................................................................

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Tip
If the form contains more fields than can fit on-screen at one time, Access automatically displays a horizontal
and/or vertical scroll bar that you can use to see the remainder of the data. You can also see the rest of the
data by pressing the PgDn key. If you’re at the bottom of a form, or the entire form fits on the screen without
scrolling, and you press PgDn, you’ll move to the next record.

The status bar at the bottom of the window displays the active field’s Description property that you

defined when you created the table (or form). If no Description exists for a field, Access displays

“Form View” in the status bar. Generally, error messages and warnings appear in dialog boxes in

the center of the screen (rather than in the status bar). The navigation controls, search box, and

view shortcuts are found at the bottom of the screen. These features lets you move from record to

record, quickly find data, or switch views.

Looking at the Home ribbon tab

The Home ribbon tab (shown in Figure 8.2) provides a way to work with the data. The Home ribbon

tab has some familiar objects on it, as well as some new ones. This section provides an overview of

the form’s Home tab. The individual commands are described in more detail later in this chapter.

Keep in mind that the Access ribbon and its controls is very context-sensitive. Depending on your

current task, one of more of the commands may be grayed out or not visible. Although this behavior

can be confusing, Microsoft’s intent is to simplify the ribbon as much as possible to allow you to

focus on the task at hand, and not have to deal with irrelevant commands as you work.

FIGURE 8.2

The Form ribbon’s Home tab

The Views group

At the far left is the Views group, which allows you to switch among the following views, which

you can see by clicking the button’s down-arrow.

l Form view: Form view lets you manipulate data on the form.

l (^) Datasheet view: Datasheet view shows the data in the row-and-column format.
Cross-Reference
Turn to Chapter 6 for information on the row-and-column format.
l PivotTable view: PivotTable view lets you display a form’s data as a pivot table.