What Form 843 Navigation 2011-2024

Welcome to the first of my Microsoft Access forms master classes. In this first master class, I'm going to show you how to build a set of custom navigation buttons like these that you can add on to any Access form. The reason that I'm building these is because although a form comes with its own set of built-in navigation buttons, I find that particularly on modern high-resolution computer screens, they're very small, a little bit difficult to see, and a little bit difficult to use. I find that some users don't even know what they're for. So, a set of clearly labeled buttons is a very useful tool to add on to any form. I'm working here in Access 2010, but what we're going to do applies equally to version 2007 or 2013. So, I'm just going to switch into another copy of the database that doesn't have those buttons yet, and we'll get started. Okay, here I am with a form that doesn't yet have a set of buttons, and the first thing I need to do is put the form into design view. So, I'm going to the Home tab and choosing design view. And I need to decide where on the form I'm going to put my buttons. Now, they will work wherever I put them, but I like to put command buttons like this onto the footer of the form. The reason being that the footer is always on view in the lower edge of the form's window. So, even if the form is too big to be accommodated by the window, the user doesn't have to scroll down to find the buttons. A footer isn't shown by default, so you have to ask for it. So, all you need to do is to right-click somewhere...