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Add a tab or page break control to a form

1. Create a blank form.

   How?

   1. In the Database window, click Forms under Objects.
   2. Click the New button on the Database window toolbar.
   3. In the New Form dialog box, click Design View.
   4. Click the name of the table or other record source that includes the data you want to base your form on. If the form won't contain data (for example, if you want to create a form to use as a switchboard to open other forms or reports, or if you want to create a custom dialog box), don't select anything from this list.

      Tip

      If you want to create a form that uses data from more than one table, base your form on a query.

   5. Click OK.

   Microsoft Access displays the form in Design view.

2. Do one of the following:

   Add a tab control to the form

   1. Open a form in Design view.
   2. In the toolbox, click the Tab Control tool and then click the form where you want to place the control.

      Microsoft Access adds a tab control with two pages. The first page is on top.

   3. To add controls to the tab control, click the tab of the page you want to add controls to. Then add controls using any of the following methods:
      • Click Field List on the toolbar to display the field list and then drag one or more fields to the tab page.
      • Click a tool in the toolbox and click on the tab page. You can add any type of control except another tab control.
      • Copy controls from another part of the form or from another page. (However, you can't drag controls from another part of a form or from another page.)
   4. Customize the tab control.

      How?

      In form Design view, do one or more of the following:

      Add, delete, or change the order of tabs

      • Right-click the border of the tab control, and then click Insert Page, Delete Page, or Page Order.

      Change the tab order of controls on a page

      • Right-click the page, and then click Tab Order.

      Specify whether the tab control can have more than one row of tabs

      • Double-click the edge of the tab control to display its property sheet, and then set the MultiRow property to Yes.

        If the MultiRow property is set to No, Microsoft Access truncates tabs that don't fit within the width of the control and adds a scroll bar.

      Specify whether to display tabs or command buttons at the top of the tab control

      • Double-click the edge of the tab control to display its property sheet, and then set the Style property to Tabs, Buttons, or None.

        You might want to click None if you plan to use a command button outside of the tab control to determine which page of the tab control has focus.

      Set the height of the tabs

      • Double-click the edge of the tab control to display its property sheet, and then type a value in the TabFixedHeight box.

        If the value is 0, each tab will be high enough to fit its contents.

      Set the width of the tabs

      • Double-click the edge of the tab control to display its property sheet, and then type a value in the TabFixedWidth box.

        If the value is 0, each tab will be wide enough to fit its contents and, if there is more than one row of tabs, the width of each tab will increase so that each row of tabs spans the width of the tab control. If the value is greater than zero, all tabs have the identical width specified by this property.

      Specify the font properties of the captions on tabs

      • Double-click the edge of the tab control to display its property sheet, and then set the FontName, FontSize, FontWeight, FontItalic, or FontUnderline property.

        You can't specify different settings for different tabs.

      Specify the display text that appears on a tab

      • Double-click the tab for the page to display its property sheet, and then type the text in the Caption box.

        If you don't specify a caption, Microsoft Access uses the text in the Name property box.

      Add a picture to a tab

      • Double-click the tab for the page to display its property sheet, click the Build button (...) next to the Picture box, and then select a picture in the Picture Builder.

        The picture appears to the left of the text specified in the Caption property. If you just want to display a picture and no text, enter a SPACEBAR space in the Caption property. Tab controls can contain bitmaps but not Microsoft Windows metafiles.

      Note  For more information about a property, click the property box in the property sheet and press F1.

   5. Size the tab control as appropriate. Click each tab to make sure all the controls fit well within each tab.

      Note  Microsoft Access won't crop controls when you size the tab control. You may need to move controls to make the tab control smaller.

   6. Switch to Form view to test the control.

   Add page breaks to the form

   1. Open the form in Design view.
   2. Click the Page Break tool in the toolbox.
   3. Click where you want to place the page break. Place the page break above or below a control to avoid splitting data in that control.

   4. Microsoft Access marks the page break on the left border of the form with a short dotted line.

   5. Note  If you want each page to be the same size and each window to show only one page at a time, design the form so that each page break is an equal distance from the other. You can do this by positioning the page break controls with the vertical ruler.

   6. Double-click the form selector to open the property sheet, and click Current Page in the Cycle property box. This will prevent the user from moving to the next page by pressing the TAB key.
   7. Remove the vertical scroll bar by setting the ScrollBars property to Horizontal Only or Neither.
   8. Switch to Form view to test the form and size it so you can only see one page at a time. You can press the PAGE DOWN or PAGE UP keys to move between pages.

   Note  You might want to add a command button to each page that users can use to move the focus to the next or previous page.