ACC2000: Form Appears Blank When Opened Except for Header (209617)

Novice: Requires knowledge of the user interface on single-user computers.

This article applies to a Microsoft Access database (.mdb) and to a Microsoft Access project (.adp).

SYMPTOMS

When you open a form in Form view, the form is blank, except for the form header. There are no controls or text, only the header.

CAUSE

This behavior may occur for one of the following reasons:

The form footer may be too large for the form, and it may be covering the entire Detail section when you view the form.
The Visible property of the Detail section may be set to No.
The form may be read-only, and there may be no data in the underlying recordset, and therefore no controls are visible.

RESOLUTION

If the problem is with the form footer, shorten the footer to allow only enough space for any controls that may appear there. If there is no data, controls in the form footer or header are visible.
If the Visible property of the Detail section is set to No, change the setting to Yes.

MORE INFORMATION

There are other reasons why a form may open and appear to be blank. Typically, this happens because the underlying recordset contains no records or because privileges have been limited. However, an oversized form footer can also cause this behavior to occur.

Steps to Reproduce Behavior

Start Microsoft Access, open the sample database Northwind.mdb, and then open the Categories form in Design view.
On the View menu, click Form Header/Footer to add a header and footer to the form.
Extend the length of the footer to at least seven inches (place no controls in the footer).
View the form in Form view. Note that the form appears to be blank.

REFERENCES

For additional information about why a form might appear to be blank, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

209734 ACC2000: Form Opened in Form View Is Completely Blank