Richard, I have been reading this forum for several years now, and I am amazed at your patience. No matter the question, you always at least try to answer it or offer some help. I would have lost patience long ago. I encourage everyone who follows this forum: understand that Access is a very complex program for doing complex things. If you want to do anything other than a VERY simple database, you'll need to do a lot of learning. Watch Richard's tutorials, read books, read the Microsoft guidance, etc. THEN ask a specific question when you run into trouble. Don't expect Richard to help you somehow skip that learning and magically create a usable database without bothering to learn Access. It's not fair to him. Do your own homework.

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Reply from Richard Rost:

Thanks, Greg. I really do enjoy helping people. If I didn't, I would be in the wrong business. I wish I could spend the whole day just helping folks out... but if I did that, I'd never have time to record new lessons.

I think the vast majority of people who ask questions on here understand that there's a learning curve. Some people do get a little upset with me when I point them to a tutorial instead of just answering their questions flat out right here. It's not that I don't want to help them... and it's not that I'm just trying to sell them lessons... it's that I'm not going to take 20 minutes to type out the answer to something I've already shown in a tutorial. I'm not going to re-invent the wheel.

I deleted a post a few days ago from a person (a non-customer, in fact) who asked me how to do something. I told him to use DLOOKUP and even pointed him to the free tutorial on it in the tips section. He then asked if I could give him more specifics and write some code for him... and then he got irate when I explained that I'd be happy to do it, for a small fee, and I pointed him to the TechHelp page or the full tutorial that covered DLOOKUP in detail.

I mean, don't get me wrong... YES, my business is to sell tutorials. That's how I pay my bills. However I hope everyone can see that I try to give away as much of myself as I can in the form of help here on the Forum, free Tips videos, and other stuff. I've always believed that if you give of yourself to others it comes back to you, and that's what I base my business on. However there are only so many hours in the day. As it is, I spend at least 3 to 4 hours every day answering emails, helping customers, posting here in the Forums, etc. These are all things I do to give back, which in turn builds business, but it's also time I'm NOT spending making new lessons. It's sometimes hard to balance the time properly.

I'm really very HAPPY to help answer questions. As long as people respect my time, don't expect a 30-minute reply to their extremely vague question, and don't get upset when I point them to a tutorial, then I'll do everything I can to help.