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Language: en

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In this lesson we will be creating basic forms 
for our database.

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So why do you need forms? In the last lesson
 you saw that one way to get data into your

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database is by entering it directly into the 
tables.

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That method is fine if you are already familiar
 with the database and the formats that the

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data should be in.
But the other users of your database may not

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enter data into the tables exactly the way
 you want them to.

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Well in Access you can create a form that 
your users can use to populate the table instead

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of working directly in the table itself.
 Access forms look a lot like paper forms that

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you may have filled out at the bank or for
work or at school.

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With an Access form, you see one record at
 a time but in a table, you see all the records

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at once.I've already created two
 basic forms, the Orders form where I'll

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enter an order for one person purchasing a
book or books, and a Customers form for entering

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a customer's information.
The Customers form has a drop down list for

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the State field.
This makes it really easy for the user to

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enter a valid state abbreviation.
The form you'll be creating is the

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Books form.
It will be used to enter books as they come

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into our store inventory.
We're also going to set up a list

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like the one in our customers form to make
 selecting a book category easy.

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So now, let's create our own form to make
 data entry easy for the person entering the

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new books.
First select the table that most closely relates

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to the form you want to create.
Next click on the Create Tab and the Form

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command in the Forms group.
This automatically generates a form based

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on table content - not the best option, since
you don't control what it looks like without

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modifying the layout...but you can always
go back and change the layout and colors later

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so this is the option we're going with.
Plus, we want all the fields from our Books

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table to appear on our form, which this option
does automatically for us.

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There are other options for creating forms
but we'll talk about that later.

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Access automatically called our form the same
as the table it is based on, but you can rename

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it whatever you want by saving it and entering
a new name- Books is just fine for what we're

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doing.
Down here we have our navigation buttons for

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our form.
I can go to the first record, the previous

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record, the next record, the last record,
or I can choose to enter a new blank record.

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In our next lesson we'll actually start entering
data in our form to create new records.