Dear Richard,

Finally…I got the answer to my question just by keenly following the flow of Access events. The searches in my Access database are now “live” i.e., as I type (letter by letter) in a control, the search automatically begins and the closest matches populate in a listbox. I will share this quick code with my fellow students who might also find it useful.
NB: In this example, I search for the names of my TB patients. On my Search form, there is a textbox named PtNameSearch. In a table named PtDetailsT, there is a field named PtName. Additionally, NameSearchList is the name of the listbox where the closest matches are populated.
Please read additional explanations in the code. In case you are interested in a more challenging way to handle this, please visit http://allenbrowne.com/AppFindAsUType.html

Private Sub PtNameSearch_Change()

    Dim W As String
    Dim S As String
    W = ""
    S = ""
    
    
    Me.Refresh 'As you type in a textbox, it becomes "Dirty". This part of code forces Access to save every letter typed (no longer dirty). After saving the word/letter typed, the Me.refresh code highlights all the text inside the control that the user is typing in. Without the next line of code, when the user types the next letter, the previous letter is deleted/overtyped

    Me!PtNameSearch.SelStart = Me!PtNameSearch.SelLength 'This wonder line of code forces the cursor to move to the infront of the last letter that the user has typed. See details of the original authour here http://www.mvps.org/access/forms/frm0011.htm

    W = " PtName LIKE ""*" & PtNameSearch & "*"" " 'Now that the letter/text has been saved, the search can begin!
      
    
    S = " SELECT PatientID, TBMgtUnitNo, RegDate, PtName, Sex, Age, County, Payam, Boma, Village, TbType, PtType, PtCategory FROM PtDetailsT "
    
    If W <> "" Then
    S = S & " WHERE " & W
    End If
    
    NameSearchList.RowSource = S

End sub

I will be happy to provide more explanations to anyone if necessary

Best regards,

MICAH

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Reply from Richard Rost:

Thanks for sharing!