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Display options for Access 2007's Navigation Pane

Suiting Access 2007’s Navigation Pane display to your liking.

Q:  Gordon Rennie writes:  “Now with Access 2007 the database window has disappeared and been replaced with a stupid list at the side that only shows one item per line.  Is there any way to get the database window back? or is it a matter of having to write something e.g. a form to replace it.

A:  You can’t get the database window back in Access 2007, but the navigation pane (its replacement) can be displayed in many different ways.  You can display all the objects, or just objects of a specific type (or types), and you can display the details for each item, or not.  There is also a Custom selection, which you can set up just as you want.  Click the drop-down button next to the All Access Objects title bar to see the group selections.  For each group in the navigation pane, there is an Expand/Contract button to show or hide that section on-the-fly.

There is another menu opened by right-clicking the menu bar; the View by selection gives you a choice of Details, Icon or List for the items in the navigation pane.

There is also a Search bar over the navigation pane (turn it on with Ctrl-F), which you can use to quickly find a specific object.

See the Office Online article called “Use the Navigation Pane to quickly view and access objects” for more information.

After using it for a while, I think you will find that that the new navigation bar is more useful than the old database window.

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