What is it called when... Entering text while looking it up at the same time.

[Wrnchbndr]

What is it called when I have a form field for text data entry and I want what I type to be used to sort of auto-suggest using data contained in a table from previous entries into the same field. Its hard to describe. The actual text field would be a customer's name. Lets say that I am entering data for John Smith and I don't know if he is an existing customer or not. In the First Name field I type the letter J. What I want to happen is that the entire form page will populate with the data of the first customer I have stored alphabetically whose name begins with J but the cursor remains right behind the J that I just typed. If I have no existing customers whose name begins with the letter J, nothing happens. If alphabetically speaking, I have a James Smith already in my database as the first J, the page gets populated with the data from James Smith until I type a letter that is not appropriate for James Smith such as "o" as the second letter in John Smith. The form's data would either go blank if I did not have anyone whose name began with "Jo" or it might populate with data if I have an existing customer named Joanne McArthur. The process continues as I type each additional letter. As soon as I type a letter where I have no corresponding existing match, the data of the form becomes unpopulated and I proceed to enter the data. Maybe I already have a customer named John Smith as I tab forward from First Name to Last Name and out of Last Name to the next field, I'll verify that I'm speaking to the right John Smith. If so, I'll just leave the existing data form as is and move to the next form screen. If not, I'll enter the new data

Over 60% of my customers/clients are return customers so the intent is to reduce data entry. If I knew what this process was called, I probably could find a tutorial for it. If you have a reference for this process, all the better. I can't find it in Access 2010 for Dummies.

[June7]

Sounds like a combobox with AutoExpand set to Yes.

A bound combobox can be used to select a value for saving in new record. If the desired customer is not in list, code can open a form to add the customer and refresh the combobox list so the customer will then be available for selection. This is the NotInList event of the combobox.

An unbound combobox can be used to select a value for use as criteria to filter form records or to go to a record of the form. Causing the form to refresh after each character is typed requires code in the combobox Change or KeyPress event.