Search on a Form in Microsoft Access

To create a search box on a form is very simple. While in design view of your form, make sure you're viewing the Control Toolbox. Choose the button indicated in the picture below:

I like to place the search box in the form header, so I draw it there. If you have a full install of Office, your Combo Box Wizard should kick in and help you at this point. Choose the item indicating to "Find a record on my form based on the value I selected in my combo box."

Hit Next, and choose the fields you want to SEE when you hit the combo box dropdown.

Here, we show choosing Last Name, then First name. Access secretly grabs the primary key field too, while you're not looking.

Hit Next and, if YOU chose your primary key field, Access will want to hide it, and show only any other field(s) you selected.

Hit Next. Give the combo box a name like "SearchName" and hit Finish.

When we move to Form view, the results of our sample display as below. I have narrowed the column width to hide actual email addresses for the purposes of this sample.