In the last topic we created a form. Now, we want to use the form look for some information in the table. A table is only useful if you can easily locate information that you need. Access offers several ways to find data in a table. We’re going to use the fine feature to find a record for some with the last the name Smith.

To return to the first record, we click on the first record button then we click in the last name field and we use the find button. When we click on it, the Find Dialog Box appears. We type what we want to search for and to find what text box. We have a number of options for where and how to conduct our search. In this case, we’re interested in finding the next occurrence of Smith. So to select find next, we press Enter. Access locates what we wanted, the last name Smith.

But what if the person we’re looking for had a hyphenated last name that included Smith? In the Find Dialog Box, the match is set for whole field. When we click on its drop down arrow, we see three options. To match the whole field as we just did to match the start of the field or to match any part of the field. If we want to locate the name that includes Smith, we need to match any part of the field, so we click on that.

We better review the search from the beginning of the table to be certain that we haven’t missed anyone. We select find first, access immediately locates the first occurrence of Smith as part of the field. We’re done finding records now, so we’re going to close the Find Dialog Box end of form. We click Yes to save the changes that we've make. A Save As dialog box displays suggesting the default name customers. We click on Okay and the form is saved and it is closed.

In addition to this convenient Find Feature, access also offers a replace feature that both finds and replaces data in just one step.