What are these lines on my access forms?

[Access_Novice]

See the attached Word file for a screen shot.

1. The ZIP field ends at arrow #1. For some reason, when I click on it, I see a box around this field (see arrow #2). When I try to move the ZIP text box, the box around it also moves. In fact, I can't select only the ZIP box. When I try to drag down the ZIP box below the State field, the outer box moves (which contains nothing) but the ZIP text box remains. What is going on?


2. When I am working with these fields, I noticed a gray box with dashed lines (#3) appearing around all fields. I have never seen this before. This seems to be a container for all controls inside. If I grab the right edge of the State field to shrink it to the left, the Town and ZIP fields also shrink, but I only want the State field to shrink. This appears to have something to do with the gray dashed borders. What is going on?

[June7]

Did you use wizard to create the form? Wizard 'groups' controls. Select all the controls (left click and sweep), hover cursor over a control, then right click > Layout > Remove. Now you can size and move each control independently.