1. Creating and Using Forms Lesson Seven ( ACCESS 2007)

2. Another way to populate a database is with the use of forms. An Access 2007 form helps the person entering data know exactly what information to enter. This lesson will address the benefits of using forms with a database. It will also show you how to set up a basic form for your Access 2007 database, and will show you how the person entering data will use the form to populate or edit data in the database. You will also learn how to enhance a basic form with a drop down list. 2 Guevarra Institute of Technology

3. Why Use Forms? In real life, a form is piece of paper that you fill out so that someone can collect and keep track of specific information about you. Only one record, your record, is captured with any given paper form. 3 Guevarra Institute of Technology

4. Access 2007 forms work very much the same way. In previous lessons, you saw that you can populate a database by entering records into the tables themselves. If the database has hundreds of records and many fields to populate for any given record, a table can be overwhelming to the person entering data. An Access form lets your user enter data one record at a time, without having to see the entire table. 4 Guevarra Institute of Technology

5. An Access 2007 form also lets the person entering data know exactly what information to enter, and can even tell him what that information should look like. Adding certain control components to a form -- like a drop down menu -- can dramatically increase the integrity of the data that is held in a database. A database owner wants to control the levels of access that other database users have to the data -- because the fewer people that are interacting with the data, the lower the chance that the data can become compromised. Corrupt data is not useful! Forms are one more way that the database owner can limit the actions of the other users. Form properties can be set so users can only enter records or only view records. 5 Guevarra Institute of Technology

6. Creating a Form Access 2007 has several automatic tools for creating forms. These tools are located in the Forms group on the Create tab in the Ribbon, as seen below: 6 Guevarra Institute of Technology

7. The Access 2007 forms tools include: The Form command makes a basic form, showing a single record at a time. The Split Form command creates a form showing one record on top, and includes the datasheet view of entire source table on the bottom. The Multiple Items command creates a form that shows all the records at once, which looks very similar to the source table in datasheet view. The Form Wizard is hidden under the More Forms command. It walks you through the process of creating more customized forms. 7 Guevarra Institute of Technology

9. Using Forms to Enter Data Populating a database is easy once you have a basic form in place. Record navigation works the same way for forms as it did for tables. The Navigation Bar is located in the bottom left of the object pane. The Navigation Buttons work the same way they did for the tables, also. The following picture shows the navigation buttons for a form. 9 Guevarra Institute of Technology

11. To Edit Records using a Form Just like in a table, the database user can edit records from a form using the Find and Replace command. This command works exactly the same way for a form as it does in a table. 11 Guevarra Institute of Technology

12. Creating a Drop Down List Using a drop down list on a form can increase the integrity of the data in the database, because drop down lists force the form user to select one of the pre-set options in the list to populate the field. These types of form controls are relatively easy to set up using the Combo Box. 12 Guevarra Institute of Technology

13. To Create a Drop Down List using a Combo Box Control With the form opened in Design View, select the Combo Box command in the Controls group on the Design tab in theRibbon 13 Guevarra Institute of Technology

14. Drag and drop the Combo Box sizing tool to create the Combo Box where desired on the form. 14 Guevarra Institute of Technology

15. The Combo Box Wizard appears. 15 Guevarra Institute of Technology

16. Choose the desired option from the Wizard, and click Next. Because the middle option was selected in the example above, the Wizard progresses to the next step, which asks for the values to be typed into a small table. Next, the Wizard asks what to do with the entered values. Access can either remember the values for later use, or can populate a field with the entered values. Use the drop down list to select which field Access should use to store the values. 16 Guevarra Institute of Technology

18. Challenge If you haven't already done so, save the sample Ready2Read database on your own computer.Scroll through the customer records using the Customers form. Create a basic Books form using the Form command. Use the new Books form to enter and save the following data: Title: The Secret Streets of Savannah Author: Amy Little Category: Travel Price: $34.99 Title: Cars and Trucks Author: Jonathon BradleyCategory: KidsPrice: $14.99 Using the Combo Box command, create a drop down list on the Books form for the following Categories: Fiction Non-Fiction Kids History Technology Home & Garden Travel Food Add another record to the database using the Books form with the drop down Category selector. Use the Find and Replace command to change the price of all books that are $14.99 to be $16.99. 18 Guevarra Institute of Technology