How To Use Combo Box Control In Access 2013

Introduction

Sometimes it is useful to provide a list of items obtained from an Access database column so that we can just select an item from that list. To do this we use a Combo Box, List Box etc controls in Access 2013. As compared to a List box, a Combo Box has the ability to store more than one field of the relevant records. In other words we can store the person's name, address, contact no etc. in one Combo Box the same as the database. Now we can also say that the Combo Box can store the data in the form of the new database. To see how its works just use the following steps.

Step 1

Open Microsoft Access 2013 and then select the Blank database template from the available templates as:



Step 2

Now give the name of your database that you want to use; I used "controls".



Step 3

Now from the Create menu click on the More forms as:



Step 4

A popup menu will shown; in this select Split form as in:



Step 5

Now go to the Form Layout Tools and select Design; in this, a list of available controls will be displayed like this:



Step 6

Now from the list of controls select the Combo Box and drag and drop it in your form., when you do that a Combo Box wizard will show a window as in:



Step 7

In this select the second option that we want to write the items of the Combo Box itself then click next. After that it will ask how many columns that we want to add in the Combo Box and give the details in those columns in this step. Suppose I want to add four fields in the Combo Box as in:

After filling in the details click next again. Now it will ask for the available fields; in other words, when we click on the Combo Box arrow all the detials will be displayed but after selecting one, only the field that you chose from will be displayed, that this is the available field. I chosed the col1 field as:



Then again click next then next then it will ask what label you want for your Combo Box; give the name that you want to; I used Employee_Details as:

Now click finish.

Step 8

Now, see in the table a field named "Employee_details" is added and when we click it ,it displays all the records as:

Step 9

When I select any value from it, it displays only the value from the first column that was specified earlier.

Summary

In this article I explained how to use the Combo Box control in Access 2013.