This is our third and last tip in this blog series about Access layout. Today, I’ll teach you how to create split forms. Let’s use the wine example in the first Access layout tip: imagine you’d like to keep track of a customer’s information and order history in an organised way. A tabbed form could help tremendously: one tab contains the customer’s details, another tab contains their order history.
Start with the form you’ve already made. All controls are listed here: ID, first name, last name, e-mail address, phone number – anything you might need. If you want to split this information into two tabs, just follow these steps:
- Drag the lower edge of your worksheet down to enlarge the form.
- Add tabs to the free space by opening the Design tab and clicking the Tab Control tool.
- Drag a rectangle into the free space . Two tabs will appear.
- Do you want more tabs? Right-click a tab and click Insert Page.
- If you want to remove a tab, right-click it and select Delete Page.
- You can rename your tabs by opening the Properties window on the Design tab and editing the Name property, or by editing the Name field on the All tab. If you want to refer to the tabs with macros or code later, you’ll need to edit the page names as well. The change will be done automatically. Name one tab ‘Customer details’ and the other ‘Orders’.
- Now add the information to the correct tabs and select the controls you need.
- Right-click and click Cut.
- Select the Customer Details tab.
- Right-click again and click Paste.
- Do the same with the controls that need to go in the Orders tab.
- Now drag the tabs to the top of your form.
- Drag the lower edge up again to resize the form.
- Switch to Form View to see the result (View >Form View). This is how your Form should look like:
That’s all there is to it! Do you want to learn more about how to use Access? Be sure to follow one of our open Access courses.
