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Quick reference

Forms in Design View - Part 1

Create a form using Form Design, add fields and learn how to position and align them. 

When to use

Understanding the tools available to help you when designing forms is fundamental to building a user-friendly form. 

Instructions

Binding a Form to a Table

When we create a new form, we must always bind it to a table. 

  • From the Create tab, in the Forms group, click Form Design.
  • From the Property Sheet, review the Record Source field.
  • Click the drop-down arrow and select 'tblTicket' from the list.  

Adding Existing Fields

Let's add some fields from 'tblTicket' to the form. 

  • From the Form Layout Design tab, in the Tools group, select Add Existing Fields. 
  • Double-click to add the 'TicketNumber', 'CustomerName', and 'Priority' to the form. 
  • Re-position as necessary. 

NOTE: Dragging the field will move the field and its label together. To reposition the label independently of the field and vice-versa, use the grey handle in the top corner of the field. 

Aligning Fields and Labels

We can use the alignment tools to align fields and labels. 

  • Hold down SHIFT and select the fields and labels. 
  • From the Arrange tab, in the Sizing & Ordering group, click Align. 
  • Choose Align Top to align all fields and labels to the top. 

Adding More Fields

  • From the Form Layout Design tab, in the Tools group, select Add Existing Fields. 
  • Double-click to add the 'Technician', 'DateLogged', 'Charge', and 'SLA' to the form. 
  • Re-position as necessary. 

Checking the Form

We should always check the form in Form View to ensure that any changes we have made are working. 

  • Right-click on the form tab and select Form View from the menu.
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  • 00:04 In this lesson we're going to be taking a look at working with forms in design view.
  • 00:08 So let's go straight up to the Create tab and
  • 00:12 this time we're going to click on Form Design.
  • 00:16 Now notice straight away over in the Property Sheet,
  • 00:19 this form isn't currently bound to any record source.
  • 00:22 So let's change that.
  • 00:24 I'm going to bind this to trouble ticket.
  • 00:28 And remember when you bind forms to tables, it means that all of the fields
  • 00:33 contained within that table are available for you to add to the form.
  • 00:38 So let's jump straight across to Add Existing Fields.
  • 00:43 Notice here there are all my fields from table ticket.
  • 00:46 Now I'm going to add ticket number, customer name, and
  • 00:50 priority to the form and I'm just double clicking my mouse to add those.
  • 00:55 Also notice that we are currently working in Design View.
  • 00:59 Now I'm going to quickly reposition some of these fields.
  • 01:02 Now remember, if you just drag the ticket number field,
  • 01:06 it's going to move the field and its label.
  • 01:08 If you want to move these independent of one another,
  • 01:11 then you need to just grab the gray square in the corner and
  • 01:14 that's going to let you move the label and the actual field independently.
  • 01:19 Now I'm going to grab ticket number and let's put that over here.
  • 01:23 And let's grab its field and put that just there.
  • 01:27 Let's take customer number and drag that across and also customer name.
  • 01:33 And then finally we have priority and the priority field just here.
  • 01:39 And I'm going to make this form very slightly wider.
  • 01:42 Now remember to get these all lined up together, you can select them all just by
  • 01:47 holding down your Shift key and then we can jump up to the Arrange tab and
  • 01:51 we can choose Align and I'm going to align these to the top.
  • 01:55 Now if you want to make any small changes,
  • 01:58 remember you can nudge these along simply by using the arrow keys on your keyboard.
  • 02:03 And I think I'm going to make this priority field slightly smaller, and
  • 02:07 let's drag the edge of that form back in again.
  • 02:11 So now I have those main fields running across the top of my form,
  • 02:14 I'm going to add some more fields.
  • 02:16 So let's add technician, description, date logged, charge and
  • 02:21 SLA, basically all of the other fields.
  • 02:25 And I can do exactly the same here and start repositioning them.
  • 02:28 And where you place things really depends on how you want your form to look to
  • 02:32 your users.
  • 02:33 So I'm going to grab, let's grab date logged and move that up to the top.
  • 02:38 I'm going to put this underneath.
  • 02:39 And again, if you want to align these, you can use your alignment tools.
  • 02:43 Now the date isn't a huge field, let's drag that in a little there.
  • 02:47 I'm going to move technician all the way down here because I want
  • 02:51 the description to go next.
  • 02:53 So let's drag that underneath, and also the actual description box.
  • 02:59 And I'm going to make this as wide as the entire form because we could have a rather
  • 03:02 long description in here.
  • 03:04 We're going to put technician up above, and
  • 03:07 we're going to put this in line with date logged in a couple of moments.
  • 03:12 So let's just drag this label across, like so, and
  • 03:16 then finally we're going to have charge and SLA at the bottom.
  • 03:21 so let's put the SLA over here and the SLA just contains one number,
  • 03:26 so we're going to make this field a lot smaller and drag it across.
  • 03:37 And then finally, let's move charge down very slightly.
  • 03:45 And let's grab that field label and make it a bit wider.
  • 03:50 Now let's do some aligning.
  • 03:51 I'm going to get all of these fields and we're going to align those to the top.
  • 03:57 I'm going to align these fields to the top as well.
  • 04:03 And I think we're looking pretty good.
  • 04:05 Maybe let's drag description out a little bit.
  • 04:09 And as I said, you can play around with these and
  • 04:11 really get your form looking exactly as you want it to look.
  • 04:14 Let's take a look at what this form is going to look like to the user.
  • 04:17 I'm going to right click and jump into form view.
  • 04:21 So it's always good to do a final review of all of the fields and
  • 04:25 see if any need their sizes adjusted.
  • 04:27 So if I scroll through some records, I can see, customer name is a little bit tight
  • 04:32 there, if we have a longer name than Harry Matthews then that's not going to fit in.
  • 04:37 So I might want to make the customer name field slightly wider.
  • 04:40 So let's jump back into design view and
  • 04:44 I'm going to move this label along a little bit and
  • 04:48 let's just drag this out a little bit more.
  • 04:53 Let's have one final check in form view.
  • 04:55 Let's run through our fields, yes, that looks a little bit better.
  • 05:00 So the final thing I want to do here is name my form.
  • 05:03 So if we go to close the form down, it's going to ask us to save, and
  • 05:07 then we can give it a name.
  • 05:08 And we're going to call this frmticketdesign, and click on OK.

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