“Date Picker”

For entering a date easily, we have a “Date Picker” in “Access” 2007.

All you have to do is to set the “Data Type” to “Date / Time” and under the “General” tab in the “Field properties” section, choose the “For dates” option in the “Show Date Picker “.

When this option is set, a date picker icon appears next to the textbox of this field when this field is selected.
Click this icon to open the “Date Picker”.
By clicking on the left and right pointing arrows at the top of the calendar, you can choose a different month.

This “Date Picker” can appear in a table, query or a “Form”.
The advantage is that you have the same formatting everywhere.

If you have not set this option in the table, you can still do this in the “Form”.

By selecting the field in the “Form” and clicking the “Field Properties” in the “Ribbon”.

And in the “Format” tab, choose “for dates” in the “Show Date Picker”.

Obviously, the data type in the table that your “Form” is based on, is of the “Date / time” type.

“Combo Box”

When we enter data into a “Form”, it is easier and faster to choose the data from a list of data than remembering the actual values.

The “Combo Box” control gives us this option.

In this example, I use the “Combo Box” control to use a list in the order “Form”.
It is easier to choose from a list of products names, than remembering the productID.

To start, I first select the “Design View” of the “Form”.
In the “Designs” contextual tab, I click the “Wizard control” (1) button. This uses a wizard to help me make a “Combo Box”.
Then I click the “Combo box” button in the “Ribbon” (2).
I then click and drag on the area in the form where I want to add the field (3).

This opens the wizard.
In the first wizard window, we have three options to determine the values for our look up list.
Since we find the products names are a separate table I select the first option and click the “Next” button.

In the second window of the wizard, I select the table where we can find them.
In this case the “Products” table and click “Next”.

In the third window of the wizard you determine which fields from your table you want to add to the list.
The “Article” and the “Price” fields seem useful to me, so I put thess in the “Selected Fields” by clicking the ‘>’ button.

In the fourth window, I select the fields, maximum of four, on which I will sort the records.

In the fifth window, I will determine the width of the columns. By placing the mouse pointer on the edge of a column title when it changes into a two-headed arrow, click and drag to the desired width.
Click “Next”.

The Sixth Wizard window you determine where you want to save this.
Since I want to save the value of this field in the “productID”, I select the second option, click the downward pointing arrow and choose the field from the list.

In the last window I get a dropdown next to the “Article” box which seems quite appropriate and click the “Finish” button.
This closes the wizard. Select “Form View” in the “Ribbon” to see the result.

“Design View”

“Form View”

Featured Courses

• Downloading iPad Apps
• Lesson 1: Introduction to Publisher
• Lesson 65: File Formats