Please advise and thank you.

If you go to the "Data" tab in the properties box for the control, you can go to the Rowsource field. If you click on that field, you'll see the three ellipses appear to the right of the field. If you click on those, it will open the query editor.

Once the query editor opens, you can easily see which fields are selected. The first should be your "ID" column which you need to relate the combo to the records. After that, if you have only 1 other field, it will probably be the "NBSectAbbr" field. If you have all three fields, and you want both the abbreviation AND the Name to display in the drop down, you'll need to move the abbreviation to the right of the Name column.

If all you want is to see the Name/Description and you're not concerned with seeing the abbreviation in the drop down, then you can either delete the abbreviation field from the grid at the bottom and then double click on the description/name field in the table at the top to add it or, you can click on the name of the abbreviation field in the grid, a drop down arrow will appear, click that and select the name of the description field.

Close the query editor saving changes and you should be seeing what you're hoping to.

Donald has you on the right track. The Row Source determines which fields are available in the combo box and their order.

One important detail: changing the Row Source alone may not change what is displayed. Check these properties on the Data tab / Format tab as well:

- Bound Column: Usually 1, so Access stores the ID value.

- Column Count: Make sure it includes all of the fields in your Row Source.

- Column Widths: This controls which columns you see. For example, if your Row Source is ID, Abbreviation, Description, you might use:

0";0";2"

That hides the ID and abbreviation columns and displays only the Description, while still storing the ID in the underlying table.

If you want to display both abbreviation and description, use something like:

0";1";2"

The first zero hides the ID, and the other two widths show the abbreviation and description.

Thank you, gentlemen.  I did not see your responses until now.

Donald Blackwell, as I was reading through your response, I noticed that your instructions related to a Query.  However, my original question a referring to a Form.  By correcting the existing Query, would I automatically be correcting the fields in the related form, so is there another process?  Thank you.

Kenneth, the combo box is on your form, but its Row Source is usually a table or query. So Donald's instructions are referring to the query behind the combo box, not a separate query you necessarily created yourself.

If you edit the combo box's Row Source in the form's Design View, those changes affect that combo box on the form automatically. You do not have to make a separate change elsewhere.

Open ByNotebookF in Design View, click the combo box, open its Property Sheet, and go to the Data tab. Click in Row Source and then click the builder button (...). That opens the query designer for that combo box's list. Adjust the fields there, save it, and close the designer.

Then check the combo box's Format properties:

Bound Column: 1

Column Count: 3

Column Widths: 0";0";2"

That setup stores the ID but shows only the Description to the user.

Again, thank you both.  I had to play with it for a few minutes, but I got it to work.  :)