Editing Data

Editing a value consists of changing it. This can be done on the table or the form . To do this, first locate the value in the field. If you are working on a table, you can click the value and use the keys (left, right, Home, End, Backspace, or the Space Bar) to edit the value. If you are working on a form, you can click the label next to a field. This would completely select the corresponding value in the control. You can then press F2 to position the caret in the control and edit its value. Alternatively, you can click the control's field and edit the value.

Sometimes there will be some regular problems in your database. For example during data entry, some information could be missing, mistyped, or entered in the wrong field. These problems would be easy to locate on a small table or form. If the database grows, values could become difficult to locate. Fortunately, Microsoft Access provides many tools you can use to find values and take actions. To assist you with finding a value in a table or a form, the Home tab of the Ribbon is equipped with a section named Find:

To start looking for a value, you can click the Find button or you can press Ctrl + F. This would open the Find and Replace dialog box with the Find tab selected:

The Find and Replace dialog box is modeless, meaning you can access the table or form in the background while the dialog box is present.

To specify the value to look for, type it in the Find What combo box. If you had previously used the dialog box, the Find What combo box keeps track of the previous searches and stores them in the control. This would allow you to perform a search on a value previously used.

The Look In combo box allows you to select the column where the value should be located. By default, when the Find and Replace dialog box displays, it selects the column or field that had focus and puts its name in the Look In combo box. You can look into that column but, if you want to search the whole table, select its name in the Look In combo box.

The Match combo box allows you to specify how close the match should be. The options are Any Part of Field, Whole Field (the default), and Start of Field.

The Search combo box allows you to specify the direction to follow. The options are Up, Down, and All (the default):

After specifying the options, you can click Find Next. After using the Find and Replace dialog box, to dismiss it, you can click Cancel or press Esc.

We have seen that you can use the Find and Replace dialog box to simply locate a value. Instead of just finding it, you may want to replace the found value with an alternate. To assist you with this, you can use the Replace section of the dialog box. To get it, in the Find section of the Ribbon, you can click the Replace button or you can press Ctrl + H. This would open the Find and Replace dialog box with the Replace tab selected:

You can also open the Find and Replace dialog box as we did for finding, then click the Replace tab.

The Replace section of the dialog box provides the same options at the Find counterpart with the addition of the Replace With combo box, the Replace and the Replace All buttons.

After specifying what to look for in the Find What combo box, the Replace With combo box allows you to specify the value to replace the Find What with.