In earlier versions of Access you had to use the form design view to make changes to the form. With Access 2000 you can make some edits in form view, but you still need to use the Form Design view in order to
make many changes especially to the forms you have created using AutoForms or the Form Wizard.
Let us look at a form in Form design view:
Microsoft Access Project
Below is the same form in Form Design view (just click the View), the first button on the toolbar, the same as with tables and queries).
Formatting toolbar
Toolbox
Form Header: Appears at the top of the form. Contains information that is the same for every record that will be displayed in the form. This often includes a title, and may include additional information.
Detail: Displays the data (the details) for each record.
Form Footer: Appears at the bottom of the form. Displays additional information that is the same for every record such as instructions for using the form.
Design grid
Labels
Bound controls contain data from a field
Bound controls contain data from a field
Field list
Toolbox button
AutoFormat
Properties
Help
Form Design View Explained You may see the toolbox floating on your screen rather than anchored as it is shown here. A floating toolbox looks like this:
Access Toolbox
Controls
All information on your form (and on reports, too) is contained in a control. A control can be a label, like the field names on the report, or it can contain the contents of a field.
Controls are commonly categorized as bound and unbound. A bound control contains content that comes from a field. On the form shown above, all the white boxes with text in them are bound controls. An unbound
control will appear the same for every record. In addition, you may also have calculated controls on your form.
Sections
The form displayed contains three sections that are indicated by the gray bands that span the form design: Form Header, Detail, and Form Footer.
Optional sections of your form are Page Headers and Page Footers that appear on each page when the form is printed.
You can add these sections (or remove them) by choosing View>>Page Header/Footer. You can change the size of a form section by clicking and dragging the form divider.
So far you have seen two views for forms: form view and form design view. There is actually a third view: Form Datasheet view.
Learn how to save your changes in Form Design view, in the next lesson.
Matching Form Design Elements
Analyze the elements of the Form Design view by clicking on the link Form Design Elements below. Form Design Elements