Applies To
Access for Microsoft 365 Access 2024 Access 2021 Access 2019 Access 2016

Applies to

Form Object

You can use the AllowEdits property to specify whether a user can edit saved records when using a form. Read/write Boolean.

expression.AllowEdits

expression Required. An expression that returns one of the objects in the Applies To list.

Setting

The AllowEdits property uses the following settings.

Setting

Visual Basic

Description

Yes

True

(Default) The user can edit saved records.

No

False

The user can't edit saved records.

You can set the AllowEdits property by using the form's property sheet, a macro, or Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) code.

Remarks

You can use the AllowEdits property to prevent changes to existing data displayed by a form. If you want to prevent changes to data in a specific control, use the Enabled or Locked property.

If you want to prevent changes to existing records (make a form read-only), set the AllowAdditions, AllowDeletions, and AllowEdits properties to No. You can also make records read-only by setting the RecordsetType property to Snapshot.

Changing a field value programmatically causes the current record to be editable, regardless of the AllowEdits property setting. If you want to prevent the user from making changes to a record (AllowEdits is No) that you need to edit programmatically, save the record after any programmatic changes; the AllowEdits property setting will be honored once again after any unsaved changes to the current record are saved.

Note: When the Data Mode argument of the OpenForm action is set, Microsoft Office Access 2007 will override a number of form property settings. If the Data Mode argument of the OpenForm action is set to Edit, Access will open the form with the following property settings:

  • AllowEdits — Yes

  • AllowDeletions — Yes

  • AllowAdditions — Yes

  • DataEntry — No

To prevent the OpenForm action from overriding any of these existing property settings, omit the Data Mode argument setting so that Access will use the property settings defined by the form.

Example

The following example examines the ControlType property for all controls on a form. For each label and text box control, the procedure toggles the SpecialEffect property for those controls. When the label controls' SpecialEffect property is set to Shadowed and the text box controls' SpecialEffect property is set to Normal and the AllowAdditions, AllowDeletions, and AllowEdits properties are all set to True, the intCanEdit variable is toggled to allow editing of the underlying data.

Sub ToggleControl(frm As Form)    Dim ctl As Control    Dim intI As Integer, intCanEdit As Integer    Const conTransparent = 0    Const conWhite = 16777215    For Each ctl in frm.Controls        With ctl            Select Case .ControlType                Case acLabel                    If .SpecialEffect = acEffectShadow Then                        .SpecialEffect = acEffectNormal                        .BorderStyle = conTransparent                        intCanEdit = True                    Else                        .SpecialEffect = acEffectShadow                        intCanEdit = False                    End If                Case acTextBox                    If .SpecialEffect = acEffectNormal Then                        .SpecialEffect = acEffectSunken                        .BackColor = conWhite                    Else                        .SpecialEffect = acEffectNormal                        .BackColor = frm.Detail.BackColor                    End If            End Select        End With    Next ctl    If intCanEdit = IFalse Then        With frm            .AllowAdditions = False            .AllowDeletions = False            .AllowEdits = False        End With    Else        With frm            .AllowAdditions = True            .AllowDeletions = True            .AllowEdits = True        End With    End IfEnd Sub

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