vba magically picks up data from form text box that isn't there

[June7]

Right, but don't expect same flexibility with a report.

[DreenG]

thanks pbaldy.
I didn't know that.
I've learned another new thing. And a useful thing at that.

[Micron]

@DreenG, I figured it was either behind another control or set to zero width and/or height. Bang is not a reference to any recordsource per se. Whatever follows ! is passed as the name argument to the default member of what precedes it. Since Me is the form and the default member of a form is the Controls collection, you're passing a string as the reference to controls in the controls collection. If the control name is txtFName and you write Me!textFName it will compile. When the line executes, it will error because textFname is not a member of the default of Me.