Combo Box only showing data from Column 1 once selected

[mcomp72]

Hi everyone. I'm relatively new to Access, and have hit a problem I just can't figure out. I have created a combo box on one of my forms. It worked just fine yesterday, but today I made a slight change to my table, and now it doesn't work quite right.



First, a quick explanation of how I made the combo box:

I set it up to have two columns: Column 1 was a number (1, 2, 3, 4), and Column 2 was a description. The value of Column 1 would be placed in a field in my table, once the user made their selection. I initially set up that field to be of data type Short Text.

The combo box was working fine yesterday. Then, this morning, I decided to change the data type of the field to Number (Integer). Now once someone makes a selection in that combo box, only the number continues to appear in the combo box after the selection is made. I change the data type back to Short Text, but this problem still occurs. I even tried deleting the combo box and recreating it, but the problem is still there.

You can see a screenshot here.



I have looked all over the Properties of the combo box to see if I can figure out how to get it to continue to show both columns once a selection is made, but I cannot figure it out. Any help would be appreciated.

[kd2017]

Is the row source from another table or from a value list?

I'm thinking set it up so the first column is the numeric value like you have done, but have the second column be a concatenation of the Numeric value and the description. Then under properties -> format -> col widths something like 0";3" to hide the first numeric column (which should be the bound column) but leave the description for UI that you're looking for.

For example if it's a value list, the row source might look like this: 1;"1 - A citizen of the United States";2;"2 - A noncitizen national of the United States"

[ArviLaanemets]

The combo box shows 1st visible column (the 1st column with width > 0)

Set ColumnWidths property to "0;2.5" (The with of 2nd column can be any value > 0 -it doesn't really affect anything except visibility).

[mcomp72]

Thanks to the both of you. I didn't realize that the combo box would only show the value of the 1st visible column. Thought it was showing both yesterday, but perhaps I was confusing that with a list box.

I took your suggestion about changing col width of Col 1 to 0 and that added the number to the beginning of Col 2 text. Worked perfectly!

[ArviLaanemets]

Probably you did see both columns in query wizard when you designed combo.