Computer Learning Zone

Test your Microsoft Access form and macro knowledge with five advanced questions about preventing edits to paid orders while keeping the rest of the order form usable.

Test your Microsoft Access form skills with an expert-level callback form quiz. The questions cover a deceptively useful detail: hiding a bound Customer ID control does not erase its value or prevent buttons and VBA from reading it.

You will also revisit common callback-list issues, including clearing the Must Callback flag when a call is finished, understanding how date arithmetic changes when time values are removed, and recognizing that a form opened from a filtered query still shows only that query's records.

The episode also tackles a familiar query design headache: duplicate date columns caused by selecting both ContactT.* and a separate Callback Date Time field. A few small form and query choices can keep callback workflows accurate without losing important contact history.

Need one VBA routine to retrieve several related pieces of information, such as a customer's address, city, state, ZIP code, and country? This episode explores a clean Access VBA pattern for doing exactly that without scattering repeated DLookup code throughout your database.

Using a Boolean function result for success or failure and ByRef parameters for the additional values, you can keep related lookup logic in one reusable place. The calling code stays readable, and it is easy to tell whether the customer record was found before using the returned data.

We also discuss why multiple DLookups are still perfectly reasonable for simple one-off tasks, and where ByRef outputs fit compared with global variables and TempVars. It is another practical VBA tool for building Access applications that are easier to maintain later, especially when past-you forgot to leave comments.

Test your Microsoft Access form knowledge with five beginner-friendly questions about labels, bound forms, Form View, sensitive fields, and continuous forms.

One key issue is what happens after you edit a record and see the pencil icon. In most bound Access forms, moving to another record commits the change to the underlying table, so users can accidentally save an edit without pressing Ctrl+S.

This quick quiz also clears up common form-design misunderstandings, including why changing a label does not rename a table field and why sensitive data can stay in the table without appearing on every form.

When staff open an Access database and see a wall of tables, queries, forms, and reports, it is easy for them to get lost or open something they should leave alone. A Navigation Form provides a simple front door, giving users one clear place to start and an easier way to reach the tools they actually need.

This episode covers Access's built-in Navigation Forms, including the available tab layouts, drag-and-drop organization, and why they are a practical no-code option for beginner and small-business databases. You will also hear why making a menu cleaner is not the same as making a database secure.

Navigation Forms are quick and useful, but they also host other forms inside a parent form, which can complicate references and VBA work in more advanced projects. Learn where this built-in approach fits well, and when a custom main menu may give you more control.

Small property sheet text can make form and report design in Microsoft Access unnecessarily difficult, especially on high-resolution displays or when your eyes need a little extra help. This episode covers Access's newer option for increasing the Property Sheet font size so design settings are easier to read.

We also discuss the difference between zooming forms in Form View and the still-missing zoom support in Design View. For those times when precise control placement is hard to see, Richard shares a practical workaround using the built-in Windows Magnifier.

It is a quick accessibility and productivity tip for anyone who spends time building Access forms, reports, and other database objects.

Test your Microsoft Access knowledge with five quick questions about form properties and macros. This advanced quiz covers control sizing, focus events, fonts, section colors, and the SetValue action.

Learn why Access uses twips for control dimensions, why Got Focus and Lost Focus work well for temporary text box resizing, and why common fonts are safer when databases move between computers.

The quiz also clears up a common macro mistake: property sheets may display friendly text such as "Normal," while SetValue may require the underlying numeric property value instead. You will also see the proper way to target the Detail section's BackColor on an open form.

Test your Microsoft Access VBA knowledge with five practical questions about combo boxes, validation, and calculating values from selected records.

Test your Microsoft Access SQL knowledge with five quick questions about the building blocks of SELECT queries. The focus includes what SELECT * means, how WHERE filters records, and why ORDER BY affects row sorting rather than the order of returned columns.

You will also look at a common combo box Row Source detail: the fields listed after SELECT determine the column sequence. Plus, learn when table-name prefixes and square brackets can be safely removed to make a simple query easier to read.

A short challenge for Access users who want to be more comfortable reading and writing SQL without letting their SELECT statement disappear into the cloud.

Test your Microsoft Access query knowledge with five beginner-friendly questions about select queries. Explore what select queries do, how to filter records without displaying sensitive values, and how sort order works in the query design grid.

You'll also learn an important real-world reminder: editing an editable value in a select query changes the underlying table record, not just a temporary result. That can be convenient, but it also means you are working with live data.

The quiz also covers refreshing an open query when another user changes data. A quick refresh, or closing and reopening the query, can bring newly matching records into view.