General Access Field Help

[tlfowler4]

Hi my name is Troy. I work for the Army, and my boss is having me build an Excel based spreadsheet in Access. He wants to be able to put a Date in Field 1, a Date in Field 2, and have Field 3 give the difference between the dates. I know how to put formulas into Excel, but Access is completely foreign to me. I tried importing an Excel spreadsheet, but it seems like all of the formulas go away once imported. I can give my email address, if someone is willing to answer questions I have one on one. I'm sure I will have a whole lot more after this one.

[TG_W]

Import the table with the three columns (Fields in Access). Create a form based on the table and add the 3 Fields in Text Boxes. Add an After Update VBA that can calculate the difference and save all 3 dates.

To add the coding, in the Form design view, click on the 'Event' tab in the 'Properties Sheet' (access this by pressing F4 key if not already open). Left-click on the "..." in the right of the After Update box. Add the code below for both Date 1 and Date 2 boxes to allow for the update if he changes one or the other, changing the names to match your text box names in the code.

[DateTextBoxNameHere] = DateDif("d",[Date1TextBoxNameHere],[Date2TextBoxNameHere])

I'll try to upload a sample database shortly.

[Bob Fitz]

Hi Troy, and welcome to the forum.
Access is not a spreadsheet and can not be used as one.
Use 2 fields in a table to store date1 and date2.
Use a form that is bound to the table with three text box controls to add/edit data in the table.
The first 2 text boxes should be bound to the Date1 and Date2 fields. The third field should have an expression as its Control Source that calculates the the difference between the two dates. Something like:
= DateDiff("d", Date1, Date2)
The third date is a calculation, so this would normally be calculated whenever and where ever required with the expression supplied.

[TG_W]

I updated my code in the previous post since I put the wrong quotation marks (should have been " not ').

Anyway, sample attached.

[tlfowler4]

I don't even know how to create a form like you are saying. I see the form button, but have know clue about the rest of it..

[TG_W]

Well, you can left-click on the Table, then left-click on 'Form' in the 'Create' tab of the ribbon, and it will automatically create a form that can be edited after. You can also left-click 'Form Design' and bring everything in you want and arrange it as you want from the beginning.