In a previous article Access – Textbox Hint Text I showed how it was possible to replicate HTML PlaceHolders for Access controls with relative ease.

That said, Access does provide a few built-in ways for developers to provide hints/suggestions/guidance to their users regarding individual controls. These methods are:

• Format Property
• Status Bar Text Property
• Control Tip Text Property

While I have come often implement my solution for adding placeholders, I thought that I discuss how they can be implemented, so you can decide for yourself which technique best suits your needs.

Status Bar Text

Access provides the Status Bar Text property which displays information in the status bar at the bottom of the Access application window. There are 2 potential issues with this approach as the status bar can be disabled, and many users don’t even notice the messages as it doesn’t standout especially on larger screens.

Control Tips

We also have the ControlTip Text property. This creates a pop-up message that gets displayed after hovering over top of controls for a few seconds. The issue here is that users need to be trained to know about this hidden feature and I have found them to be very unreliable in some databases, thus the reason why I originally developed Enhanced ControlTip.

Format Property

Did you know there is a built-in way to add a Hint/PlaceHolder using the Format property?

Adding a ‘Hint’ to a Control

Let’s look at a concrete example. Say, we have a textbox to input a contact’s First Name, we could create a Format property like:

@;"Enter your First Name here"

if you want, you can even specify a color to differentiate it from true values by doing

@;[Cyan]"Enter your First Name here"

but you are very limited on the colors you can use: Black, Blue, Green, Cyan, Red, Magenta, Yellow, White.

What’s The Issue With Using The Format Property Then?!

The first issue is that documentation on this is basically non-existent! Look at the official documentation: TextBox.Format property (Access) | Microsoft Docs, I see no explanation or example of what can be done.

The second issue is the available colors. Let’s be honest, they are simply horrible, very hard on the eyes to the point of being illegible in some cases.

Now for basic Textboxes, this is a decent solution, but, IMHO, you shouldn’t use the color option.

Where things quickly fall apart is if you try to add Hints/PlaceHolders to other controls such as Combo Boxes. In the common case of a combo box with 2 columns (a PK field and a Value field) whose PK field is hidden, adding such a Hint/PlaceHolder does not get displayed! 99% of my combo boxes in my applications fall into this category (as that is the proper way in a relational database to build combo boxes!) and thus the built-in Format property quickly looses it luster and simply doesn’t work.

The real solution would have been for Microsoft to provide a proper PlaceHolder property!!! OR fix the Format property to work properly across all controls and improve their documentation.

Disclaimer/Notes:

Microsoft Access 2010 Runtime
Microsoft Access 2013 Runtime
Microsoft Access 2016 Runtime
Microsoft 365 Access Runtime

Download a Demo Database

This demo file simply provides an example of each method so you can learn how to implement each and explorer the Pros and Cons of each for yourselves.

Feel free to download a 100% unlocked demo copy by using the link provided below:

Version History

A Few Resources on the Subject

• Access – Textbox Hint Text
• TextBox.Format property (Access) | Microsoft Docs
• TextBox.StatusBarText property (Access) | Microsoft Docs
• TextBox.ControlTipText property (Access) | Microsoft Docs