Question: In an Access report if you  have three fields stacked, how can you assure your fields will move up if the field is empty? My report is currently leaving space for all three lines. If one or more lines is blank, is there a function that moves up the lines so they don’t take space on the report?

• Address1
• Address2
• Address3

Answer:  Yes, you can set the properties “To Shrink”.

1. In the report design view, right click on the field and select Properties
2. Click the Format tab and can change the format “Can Shrink” properties to YES on each of the fields 

 Be sure to remove any labels on those lines that may cause the blank line to display.

Question: I recently upgraded to Access 2007 but the command buttons in my database form which was created in Access 2003 no longer work.

Answer: The most common reason for this is that Access has built-in macro security. Your “buttons” use code which is blocked for your protection. To enable those macros to work, you must “Enable” the content. You will probably see a prompt below the ribbon which says, “Security Warning    Certain content in the database has been disabled.” Click the Options…. button.

You can Enable this content, which will require you to enable it each time you use the database.

In order to enable it each time without having to click the options, you can add the folder with your Access files to your trusted locations. Do this by clicking on the Open the Trust Center from that Security Alert screen. Click on the Trusted Locations link and click add new location and browse for the folder where your Access database is located. You can also check Subfolders. and click OK twice. This will allow you to open the file without having to enable macros for each database.

(You can also find the Trust Center settings by clicking on the Microsoft Office button and select Access Options and click Trust Center. You will find Trusted Locations from the Trust Center settings link).

Question: How can I email an Access table to someone without emailing the entire database?

Answer: The only way to email a table is to export it in another format, such as an Excel spreadsheet, word table or PDF document, or you can copy and paste the table into an email message.

In Access 2003, select the desired table and click Tools > Office Links > Analyze it with Excel (or Publish it with Microsoft Word). To save in PDF format in Access 2003, you must have Acrobat installed).

In Access 2007, select the desired table and click the External Data tab and select Excel, PDF , Word or  text file. (In order to expert to PDF you must have downloaded the free “Save as PDF or XPS” file from office.microsoft.com/downloads).

Question: I created a query joining several tables together, but when I run it no data displays. What am I doing wrong?

Answer: By default, when you link tables together in Access, it will display information for which there is data in both tables based on the linked field. If you have information in one table but some of the tables have no data, nothing will be displayed. So in order to get a list of all data in one large table, you need to change your join lines.

To do that, right click on the link and select Join Properties. Select option 2 or 3 (depending which is the main table containing information and click ok. In addition, I recommend you build your query little by little, adding one or two tables and conditions at a time. That way it is easier to troubleshoot problems.

Question: I need to modify a form using Access 2007 and would like to move only one field, not all fields. But when I select the field and drag to resize, all fields in the column are resized. How can I change just that one field?

Answer: This has been a frequent question with Access 2007. Forms in this version have changed considerably, making it easier to create forms with little need to select and tweak controls (fields and labels, etc.) like you did in older versions. However, the control layout is somewhat “locked.” To be able to tweak individual controls, select the form controls you wish to “unlock” (or select the entire form) and from the Form Design Tools, click the Arrange tab, and click Remove (third icon from the left). This option is available in Layout or Design view.