Thank you for taking the time and attention to help me!

Would it be preferable to break the form down into separate interface parts
instead of making one monster?

I have a database with 4 tables: Main, Details, Subject, and Author. It is
for storing and retrieving "book and book passage notes" info. "Ideally",
I'd like to be able to input all "book and book passage notes" info, at one
interface.

However, if the "ideal" is not really feasible, what would you recommend as
the next best thing?
--
2nd_Stage_User


"Allen Browne" wrote:

First, create the main form, bound to Table1.
From the Toolbox (View menu), add a tab control to the form.
Place the controls from Table1 onto the first page of the tab control.

There are many ways to make a subform, including using the subform wizard in
the Toolbox. My preference is to actually create a form, and save it. Then
open your orignal form, select the 2nd page of the tab control, and drag it
from the database window. Then right-click the edge of the new subform
control, and check its Properties. On the Data tab of the Properties box,
you should see the name of the main form's primary key as the
LinkMasterFields, and the name of the subform's foreign key as the
LinkChildFields.

Normally, you would create the 3rd one as a subform of the 2nd one. If you
want it to be in the next tab page of the main control, add a text box to
the main form that reads the value in the 2nd subform. This text box will
have a ControlSource of:
=[Sub2].Form![Text2]
where Sub2 is the name of the subform control, and Text2 is the name of the
text box for the primary key. You will then use the name of this text box as
the LinkMasterFields for your next subform. It is possible to skip the text
box and use the reference directly in LinkMasterFields: there's an example
of that in the Customer Orders form in Northwind.

You may find that it starts to become unweildy to take this approach to the
4th level. There are potential traps, such as crashes related to Conditional
Formatting, code in Form_Current, Name AutoCorrect, and performance issues
related to subdatasheets, not to mention the ineffieincy of loading and
synchronizing lots of forms like that, and most importantly the
user-overload of trying to understand an interface like that.

Would it be preferable to break the form down into separate interface parts
instead of making one monster?

--
Allen Browne - Microsoft MVP. Perth, Western Australia.
Tips for Access users - http://allenbrowne.com/tips.html
Reply to group, rather than allenbrowne at mvps dot org.

"2nd_Stage_User" wrote in message
...
Thank you for replying!

From your suggestion, I envision one single Form, consisting of a Main
Form
and 3 Subforms within the Main Form. (This is what I want!)

Additionally, the Main Form uses fields from Table1, Subform1 uses fields
from Table2, Subform2 uses fields from Table3, and Subform3 uses fields
from
Table4.

Finally, Table1 contains a field that is also in Table2, Table3, and
Table4.
(Let's call this field "CommonField". CommonField will be the primary key
in Table1, and the foreign key in Table2, Table3, and Table4.)

What I don't get is how to "put the main part of the form into a tab, and
put each subform into a tab if the screen was too cluttered"?

I'd like to advance from field to field, thru entire Form (Main Form,
Subform1, Subform2, and Subform3) using just the Tab key.

--
2nd_Stage_User


"Linda Burnside" wrote:

It is possible. The way I would do it would be to create your main form
using data from your primary table - the one that would contain a field
common to the other three
and then using subforms, create forms for the other three tables.

I would put the main part of the form into a tab, and put each subform
into
a tab if the screen was too cluttered.

Linda

"2nd_Stage_User" wrote in
message
...
1.) I want to create a Form that will be used "only" for data entry.
2.) The Form will need to contain fields from 4 tables.
3.) I'd like to use tab key to move from one field to another.

Is such a Form create-able? If so, what steps must be performed to
create
such a Form?

(The 4 tables are Main, Details, Subject, and Author.)
--
2nd_Stage_User