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Subform in a Continuous Form By Richard Rost 
6 years ago
Display a Subform Inside a Continuous Form In this Microsoft Access tutorial, I will show you how to display a Subform inside a Continous Form (List Form). Em (Platinum Member) asks, "I’m trying to create a subform inside of a continuous form and it’s not working. Access gives me an error message and won’t let me do it. Do you have a workaround?" MembersI'll show you how to keep the customers and contacts as two separate continuous forms side-by-side. As you move from customer to customer it will sync up the contact list. When you close the customer form, the contact form will close. Silver Members and up get access to view Extended Cut videos, when available. Gold Members can download the files from class plus get access to the Code Vault. If you're not a member, Join Today! Links
IntroIn this video, we will talk about how to place a subform inside a continuous (list) form in Microsoft Access. You will see why Access displays an error when trying to insert a subform directly into the detail section of a continuous form, and learn a workaround by placing the subform in the form footer instead. I will demonstrate these steps using a customer list and contact subform, show how the form properties affect the behavior, and explain how linked fields between parent and subform work.TranscriptWelcome to another TechHelp video brought to you by AccessLearningZone.com. I am your instructor, Richard Rost. In today's video, I am going to show you how to put a subform inside of a list form, which is also known as a continuous form.Today's question comes from Emma, who is one of our platinum members. Emma asks, "I'm trying to create a subform inside of a continuous form, and it's not working. Access gives me an error message and won't let me do it. Do you have a workaround?" Well, Emma, I have good news and bad news. The bad news is you are going to keep getting that error message. The good news is I am going to show you a way around it. Now, let me show everyone what we have here. We have a customer list form. This is a continuous form. I call them list forms also. If you do not know how to create a continuous form, I have separate videos for that and I will put links in the description below the video, of course. The list form, the continuous form, is used to pick a customer. Then you can hit this open customer button and it will open up that customer. Then, for each customer, I have a separate list form to show contacts for that customer. Now, this is a continuous form. This is a single form. It shows one record at a time, and you have to scroll through this way. The trick is Emma wants to put a continuous form inside another continuous form. For example, while scrolling through these records here, show the contacts at the same time for this customer, instead of having to open up multiple forms. We want to, in essence, take this contact subform and put it inside the customer list form. You can do this easily with the customer form, because the customer form is a single form. We can go to design view. Open this guy up. Make the detail section bigger. Grab the contact form, drag it, and drop it right down here. Make it a little bigger so you can see everything. Now if I save this and close it, if I open up a customer now, you can see there are all my contacts as a subform inside my main customer form. In fact, if I go right to the customer form, you can browse through the customers, and see their contacts will change. That is basically how a subform works. It is related to this main parent form. If you go to design view, open up the properties for this form here, right on the edge of the border, go to Data, you will see it says Link Master Fields, Link Child Fields. I talk about these properties in my Access Expert 2 class. I will put links below. That is how you can link a subform to the main parent form. If I open this up, you can see there we go. Now, the problem is putting this inside a continuous form. Let me get rid of this in here. Design view. Let me delete this one. Delete. Let me shrink this up here. Put this back the way it was. Now, the customer list form. Let us try putting that subform in here. Design view. Now, I do not want to put it inside here. If I put it inside the detail section, it is going to look kind of weird because it is going to separate these guys out. Let me show you what I am talking about. Contact form, drag it, drop it in here. Now you get this error message. This is what Emma was talking about. It says a form with a subform object cannot have its default view property set to continuous forms. If you try to add a subform to a form in design view, Microsoft Access will reset the property to single form. So it is going to change this guy's property to single form for us. What we are going to be left with, let me show you. Let me make this guy bigger so you can see. Let me save this and close it. Now look what we have. If I go to my customer list, it turned this master form, the parent form, into a single form, which is kind of what we had before. But that is not what I want. I want to see my list of customers, and then I want to see my list of contacts. Let us go back in here. Design view. Let us get rid of this. Let us put this form back the way it was. Let us fix it. I will have to go back in here and turn this back into continuous forms again. No, Access, I want this to stay continuous forms. Open it back up again. So we are back where we started. Now here is the trick. Let us go into design view. Instead of putting that subform inside the detail section, let us put it in the form footer. Make this bigger so it accommodates it. Grab the contact form, drag it, drop it down here. Now you get the same error message: a form with a subform cannot have its default property set to continuous forms. Now it is silly and it is stupid, but here is what you do. All you have to do is wait. I am fixing the subform and you are thinking, "What do I do?" Come up here, go to the properties again. Switch it back to continuous form. Access will let you. Save it, close it, and open it. And look at that. Even though it yelled at you, it let you get away with it. I do not know if that is by design or if it is a bug, but now look, it is actually functional. As I move between these records, I can see the contacts below for the customer that I am clicked on. So again, design view. Put the subform down here in the form footer, not in the detail section. You could put it in the form header if you want to as well. Save it, close it, reopen it. There you go. That is a subform inside a continuous form. It is not between the lines up here. It is not between the records, but that is probably not what you want anyway. You want to see your list of customers up here and the list of contacts down here, or orders, or whatever you are relating it to. Remember, you can also show fields down here for this parent record too. This is a related table, but you could also, since this customer list is based on the Customer table, go up here to design and add existing fields. Let us say you have something big like a notes field. Do I have one in here? I do have Notes. You can take Notes and drop the field down here. Now, I will get rid of the label. As I am scrolling through my customers, it is hidden behind that box. I do not really like this layout. I prefer having this to the side of my customers. I will show that in the member video. Let us do that and resize. Save it. Close. Open it back up again. Now, this is the Notes, and it is in the subform. As I move through the customer record, you can see the notes change too. This Notes box is linked to the Customer table. So I can change this in here, and notice that is the dirty record. It is linked to that. But I can also come down here and put stuff down here, and that is linked to James. See that? So you can do both. It is tricky stuff. As I said, I am not sure if this is an Access bug or if they just forgot to take that warning message out, but a subform inside a continuous form works as long as it is in the form footer. Want to learn more? There is an extended cut of this video where I show you how to set this up as two forms side by side. I prefer it this way. I do not like list forms inside of list forms, continuous forms inside of other continuous forms. It is sloppy, hard to code, and there are lots of reasons why I do not like to do it. I like to have this set up as two forms next to each other. So when I open up the customer list form, the contacts for that customer open up. As I move from customer to customer, they sync up. And if I close the customer list, it will also close the contact form. Here is what we end up with. Click on customers, it opens up both forms. I can move from record to record, and it syncs up the contacts. If I close the customer list, it also closes the contact form. That is all covered in the extended cut for members only, silver members and up. It is a little more advanced, requires just a couple of lines of code, but I will show you everything you need. How do you become a member? Click on that Join button right below the video. You will see a list of options and different perks: supporter, silver member, gold, platinum, and diamond, of course. Thanks for watching. This is one of my fun things to do every day, recording a TechHelp video. These will be free and I will always have them free. I am glad that you enjoy learning with me. Make sure you subscribe to my channel. This is free, of course. You will get notifications whenever I release a new video. Make sure you ring that bell and click on All, and you will get email notifications every time I release a new video. Stop by my website and visit the Access forum. Lots of good conversations are going on there. If you want to learn more, I talk about continuous forms in my Access Beginner 7 class and linking child and master fields in Access Expert 2. I will put links below the video. If you have not taken my Access Level 1 class, do it now. It is a three-hour tutorial. It is absolutely free. It is on my website and on my YouTube channel. If you like Level 1, Level 2 is just a dollar. If you have questions like this you want to see answered in a TechHelp video, there is the page. You can also email them to me, although I do prefer you submit them on my TechHelp page because emails are not perfect. I get too much email every day, and sometimes it gets tossed in a side folder. But if it is submitted on my TechHelp page, it gets priority. Of course, members on my page get priority over all the rest. Make sure you stop by and take my course survey. Even though this was not a paid course, I still like to get feedback from everyone who watches my videos. So there is the page right there. Thanks for watching. I hope you learned something and we will see you next time. QuizQ1. What is another name for a continuous form in Microsoft Access?A. List form B. Subform C. Datasheet form D. Navigation form Q2. What error do you get if you try to place a subform inside the detail section of a continuous form? A. Form cannot contain controls B. A form with a subform object cannot have its default view property set to continuous forms C. Subform must be linked to a query D. Parent form cannot be updated Q3. What does Access do if you add a subform to a continuous form's detail section? A. Changes the main form's view to single form B. Deletes the subform C. Converts the subform to a report D. Displays both forms as datasheet only Q4. What is the recommended workaround for including a subform in a continuous form? A. Place the subform in the form footer or header B. Use a report instead of a form C. Place the subform in the page header D. Combine both tables into one form Q5. After placing the subform in the footer and receiving the error message, what should you do next? A. Change the view property of the main form back to continuous forms B. Remove the subform C. Move it to the detail section again D. Convert it to datasheet view Q6. What happens if you follow the workaround and put the subform in the form footer or header? A. The subform functions correctly as you select records B. The form crashes C. The subform is not visible D. The form remains single form only Q7. Why does the presenter prefer two forms side by side over a subform inside a continuous form? A. Easier to code and maintain B. It looks more colorful C. Access does not allow any subforms D. It uses less storage Q8. Which section does the video suggest you could also use for placing the subform, in addition to the form footer? A. Form header B. Page header C. Detail section D. Navigation pane Q9. What additional content does the extended cut cover? A. Setting up two forms side by side that sync as you move between records B. Creating macros C. Running parameter queries D. Exporting forms to Excel Q10. When linking a subform to a main form using properties, which property is used? A. Link Master Fields and Link Child Fields B. Default View Property C. Format Property D. Navigation Buttons Q11. How can you provide feedback or ask for TechHelp video topics? A. Submit them on the TechHelp page B. Only by emailing the instructor C. By calling customer support D. Via social media only Answers: 1-A; 2-B; 3-A; 4-A; 5-A; 6-A; 7-A; 8-A; 9-A; 10-A; 11-A DISCLAIMER: Quiz questions are AI generated. If you find any that are wrong, don't make sense, or aren't related to the video topic at hand, then please post a comment and let me know. Thanks. SummaryToday's video from Access Learning Zone focuses on how to include a subform within a list form, often referred to as a continuous form, in Microsoft Access. Many Access developers run into this limitation: Access does not natively allow for placing a subform directly inside a continuous form. You will likely see an error message if you try, just as Emma, a platinum member, experienced. While it seems like a roadblock, there is a workaround you can use to achieve very similar functionality.To provide some context, let me explain the typical setup. Imagine you have a list of customers, which displays as a continuous form (or list form), allowing you to scroll through all customers at once. You can select a customer and, in most setups, open a separate form to view more details or related data, such as their contacts. That contact information usually appears in a single form view (showing one record at a time) rather than showing a list of contacts side by side with each customer as you scroll. The challenge arises when you want to have each customer in the list display their related contacts in a subform, ideally as you scroll through customers. Access will prevent you from dropping a subform control directly into the detail section of a continuous (list) form. If you try, you will get an error explaining that forms with subform objects cannot maintain their continuous forms property and will revert to single form view. However, you are not entirely out of options. Here is the key: instead of placing your subform in the detail section, place it in the form footer (or header, if you prefer). You may still see the same warning message, but after adjusting the form's default view property back to continuous forms, Access will let you save this setup, and it will function as expected. Once set up, as you move through the customers in your continuous list, the subform in the footer updates to show the related records for the customer currently selected. It is not embedded in each row—rather, it updates based on the current record selection. For most purposes, this is often what you actually want: a clean customer list above, with the related contacts (or orders, or whatever you are linking) displayed below. You can also add additional fields from the main table into the footer area, such as a notes field, so that as you browse the list, any relevant information also updates accordingly. While this solution works, I personally prefer a different approach. In the Extended Cut of this video, you will learn how to display two forms side by side: one showing the list of customers and one displaying the related data, such as contacts. The two forms remain synchronized by adding just a few lines of VBA code, meaning as you select a customer, the related contacts update automatically. When you close the customer list, the contact form also closes. This method avoids the clutter and complexity of trying to nest one continuous form inside another. This setup, covered in detail for Silver members and above, is a more advanced but effective way to manage related lists in Access, keeping your database clean, navigable, and easier to maintain or extend with further customizations. If you want to learn more about creating continuous forms, linking child and master fields, or improve your foundational Access skills, I recommend checking out my Access Beginner 7 class and Access Expert 2 class. If you are just getting started, my Access Level 1 course is three hours long and available completely free on my website and YouTube channel. Level 2 is available for just one dollar if you decide to continue. For ongoing support, stop by my Access forum to join the conversation with fellow Access developers. If you have questions you'd like answered in a future TechHelp video, please submit them through my TechHelp page as it is the best way to ensure your question gets priority. Finally, I encourage you to fill out my course survey—even for free videos like this one—as your feedback helps me improve and serve you better. You can find a complete video tutorial with step-by-step instructions on everything discussed here on my website at the link below. Live long and prosper, my friends. Topic ListAdding a subform to a single (parent) form in AccessUnderstanding continuous (list) forms in Access Limitations of subforms inside continuous forms Access error for subforms in continuous forms Default view settings and Access form behavior Workaround for placing a subform in a continuous form Using the form footer to host a subform Step-by-step guide to adding a subform to the form footer Switching the form back to continuous view after error Relating subform records to selected parent record Adding and linking fields in the form footer Synchronizing displayed subform data with parent record |
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| Keywords: TechHelp Access subform inside continuous form list form PermaLink Subform in a Continuous Form in Microsoft Access |
