A single action, such as moving from one control on an object to another control, can trigger several different events, which occur in a particular sequence. Knowing when events occur and in what order they occur is important, because it can affect how and when your macros or event procedures run. For example, if there are two event procedures that are to be run in a certain order, you want to make sure that the events that they are associated with occur in that same order.
In this article
Order of events for controls on forms
Events occur for controls on forms when you move the focus to a control, and when you change and update data in a control.
Note: Microsoft Office Access displays event names slightly differently in the Visual Basic Editor than it does in the property sheet and the Macro Builder. For example, the event named On Got Focus in the form's property sheet and in the Macro Builder is named GotFocus in the Visual Basic Editor. The examples in this article use the Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) format for event names.
Moving the focus to a control
When you move the focus to a control on a form (for example, by opening a form that contains one or more active controls, or by moving the focus to another control on the same form), the Enter and GotFocus events occur in this order:
Enter
When you open a form, the Enter and GotFocus events occur after the events associated with opening the form (such as Open, Activate, and Current), as follows:
Open (form)
When the focus leaves a control on a form (for example, when you close a form that contains one or more active controls, or when you move to another control on the same form), the Exit and LostFocus events occur in this order:
Exit
When you close a form, the Exit and LostFocus events occur before the events associated with closing the form (such as Unload, Deactivate, and Close), as follows:
Exit (control)
Changing and updating data in a control
When you enter or change data in a control on a form and then move the focus to another control, the BeforeUpdate and AfterUpdate events occur:
BeforeUpdate
The Exit and LostFocus events for a control whose value changes occur after the BeforeUpdate and AfterUpdate events:
BeforeUpdate
When you change the text in a text box or in the text box section of a combo box, the Change event occurs. This event occurs whenever the contents of the control change, but before you move the focus to a different control or record (and therefore, before the BeforeUpdate and AfterUpdate events occur). The following sequence of events occurs for each key that you press in a text box or in the text box section of a combo box:
KeyDown
The NotInList event occurs after you enter a value in a combo box that is not found in the combo box list and then try to move the focus to another control or record. The NotInList event occurs after the keyboard events and the Change events for the combo box, but before the events for any other control or the form. If the LimitToList property of the combo box is set to Yes, the Error event for the form occurs immediately after the NotInList event:
KeyDown
Order of events for records on forms
Events occur for records on forms when you move the focus to a different record, update data in a record, delete an existing record or records, or create a new record.
Moving the focus to records and updating data in records
When you move the focus to an existing record on a form, enter or change data in the record, and then move the focus to another record, the following sequence of events occurs for the form:
Current (form)
When you leave the record whose data has changed, but before you enter the next record, the Exit and LostFocus events occur for the control that has the focus. These events occur after the BeforeUpdate and AfterUpdate events for the form, as follows:
BeforeUpdate (form)
As you move the focus among the controls on a form, events occur for each control. For example, the following sequences of events occur when you do the following:
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Open a form and change data in a control:
Current (form)
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Move the focus to another control:
Exit (control1)
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Move the focus to another record:
BeforeUpdate (form)
Deleting records
When you delete a record, the following events occur for the form, and Microsoft Office Access displays a dialog box asking you to confirm the deletion:
Delete
If you cancel the Delete event, the BeforeDelConfirm and AfterDelConfirm events do not occur, and the dialog box is not displayed.
Creating a new record
When you move the focus to a new (blank) record on a form and then create a new record by typing data in a control, the following sequence of events occurs:
Current (form)
The BeforeInsert (form) event triggers as soon as you start typing in the control. The AfterInsert (form) event triggers after you leave the record.
The BeforeUpdate and AfterUpdate events for the controls on the form and for the new record occur after the BeforeInsert event and before the AfterInsert event.
Order of events for forms and subforms
Events occur for forms when you open or close a form, move between forms, or work with data on a form or subform.
Opening and closing a form
When you open a form, the following sequence of events occurs for the form:
Open
If there are no active controls on the form, the GotFocus event occurs for the form after the Activate event but before the Current event.
When you close a form, the following sequence of events occurs for the form:
Unload
If there are no active controls on the form, the LostFocus event occurs for the form after the Unload event but before the Deactivate event.
Moving between forms
When you switch between two open forms, the Deactivate event occurs for the first form, and the Activate event occurs for the second form:
Deactivate (form1)
The Deactivate event for a form also occurs when you switch from the form to another object tab in Access. However, the Deactivate event does not occur when you switch to a dialog box, to a form whose PopUp property is set to Yes, or to a window in another program.
Note: The Open event does not occur if you move the focus to a form that is already open, even if you have moved the focus to that form by performing an OpenForm action.
Working with data on a form
Form and control events occur as you move between records in the form and change data. For example, when you first open a form, the following sequence of events occurs:
Open (form)
Similarly, when you close a form, the following sequence of events occurs:
Exit (control)
If you have changed data in a control, the BeforeUpdate and AfterUpdate events for both the control and the form occur before the Exit event for the control.
Working with subforms
When you open a form that contains a subform, the subform and its records are loaded before the main form. Thus, the events for the subform and its controls (such as Open, Current, Enter, and GotFocus) occur before the events for the form. However, the Activate event does not occur for subforms. Therefore, opening a main form triggers an Activate event only for the main form.
Similarly, when you close a form that contains a subform, the subform and its records are unloaded after the form. The Deactivate event does not occur for subforms. Therefore, closing a main form triggers a Deactivate event only for the main form. The events for the controls, form, and subform occur in the following order:
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Events for the subform's controls (such as Exit and LostFocus)
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Events for the form's controls (including the subform control)
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Events for the form (such as Deactivate and Close)
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Events for the subform
Note: Because the events for a subform occur after the main form is closed, certain events, such as canceling the closing of the main form from an event in the subform, will not occur. You may need to move these types of validation tests to an event on the main form.
Order of events for keystrokes and mouse clicks
Keyboard events occur for forms and controls when you press keys or send keystrokes while the form or control has the focus. Mouse events occur for forms, form sections, and controls on forms when you click the mouse buttons while the mouse pointer is on a form, section, or control. Mouse events also occur when you move the mouse pointer over a form, section, or control.
Keyboard events
When you press and release a key while a control on a form has the focus (or use the SendKeys action or statement to send a keystroke), the following sequence of events occurs:
KeyDown
When you press and release a key or send a keystroke in the ANSI character set, the KeyDown, KeyPress, and KeyUp events all occur. If you press and hold down an ANSI key, the KeyDown and KeyPress events alternate repeatedly (KeyDown, KeyPress, KeyDown, KeyPress, and so on) until you release the key; then the KeyUp event occurs.
If you press and release a non-ANSI key, the KeyDown and KeyUp events occur. If you press and hold down a non-ANSI key, the KeyDown event occurs repeatedly until you release the key, and then the KeyUp event occurs.
If pressing a key triggers another event for a control, that event occurs after the KeyPress event but before the KeyUp event. For example, if a keystroke changes text in a text box, which triggers a Change event, the following sequence of events occurs:
KeyDown
If a keystroke causes the focus to move from one control to another control, the KeyDown event occurs for the first control, whereas the KeyPress and KeyUp events occur for the second control. For example, if you change data in a control and then press the TAB key to move to the next control, the following sequences of events occur:
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First control:
KeyDown
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Second control:
Enter
Mouse events
When you click and release a mouse button while the mouse pointer is on a control on a form, the following sequence of events occurs for the control:
MouseDown
If a control has the focus and you click another control to move the focus to this second control, the following sequences of events occur:
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First control:
Exit
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Second control:
Enter
If you move to another record and then click a control, the Current event for the form also occurs before the Enter event for the control.
Double-clicking a control causes both the Click and DblClick events to occur. For example, when you double-click a control other than a command button, the following sequence of events occurs for the control:
MouseD
own
When you double-click a command button, the preceding sequence of events occurs, followed by a second Click event.
The MouseMove event for a form, section, or control occurs when you move the mouse pointer over the form, section, or control. This event is independent of the other mouse events.
Order of events for reports and report sections
Events occur for reports and report sections when you open a report to print or preview it, or close a report.
Events for reports
When you open a report to print or preview it and then later close the report or move to another object tab in Access, the following sequence of events occurs for the report:
Open
When you switch between two open reports, the Deactivate event occurs for the first report, and the Activate event occurs for the second report:
Deactivate (report1)
The Deactivate event for a report also occurs when you switch from the report to another object tab in Access. However, the Deactivate event does not occur when you switch to a dialog box, to a form whose PopUp property is set to Yes, or to a window in another program.
When you open a report that is based on a query, Access triggers the Open event for the report before it runs the underlying query. As a result, you can set the criteria for the report by using a macro or event procedure that responds to the Open event. For example, the macro or event procedure can open a custom dialog box in which you enter report criteria.
Events for report sections
When you print or preview a report, the Format and Print events occur for the report sections after the Open and Activate events for the report and before the report's Close or Deactivate events:
Open (report)
Security You can use Report View to enable user filtering of reports. But unlike Print Preview, the Format and Print events in any section don’t occur in Report View. This also applies to VBA function results and user defined procedures that display in controls (such as label captions, display status, conditional formatting, resizing of controls and so on) within those events. Therefore, do not use code in this event to format, hide, or print confidential data, which might become exposed. We recommend pre-filtering the data or disabling Report Preview by setting the AllowReportView property to No.
In addition, the following events can occur during or after formatting but before the Print event:
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The Retreat event occurs when Access returns to a previous section during report formatting.
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The NoData event occurs if there are no records displayed by the report.
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The Page event occurs after formatting but before printing. You can use this event to customize the appearance of the printed report.
