Numbering forms in Access 2007

Q I have a form based on my Access 2007 database, each form is A4 size and I would like to put page numbers onto the forms when I print them. It seems quite easy to do and I think I’ve done it right, but they don’t show up on the form. What am I doing wrong?

Pippa Davies

A You’ve probably done everything right, but the page numbers are not displayed in Form view or Layout view ­ you have to use Print Preview in order to see them on screen.

Page numbers are indeed easy to add to a form in Design view: click the Page Numbers button in the Controls group and make selections in the Page Numbers dialogue box. You can set the format to be either ‘Page 2’ or ‘Page 2 of 5’, place them in the header or footer and choose an alignment.

Picking Inside or Outside will alternate printing the numbers on the left or right of the form, depending on whether the pages are odd or even numbers. Inside puts the odds on the left and Outside puts them on the right.

Once you’ve added page numbers, click the Office button and choose Print, Print Preview and you should see the numbers displayed.

Incidentally, page numbers are allocated to the current batch of paper pages that would roll out of the printer; they have no connection with any record numbering system you might be using in the database. If you filter your records to see, for instance, the four records entered today, or all records where the city is Oxford, the pages (which in Pippa’s case equate to records) will be numbered from 1 to 4.