the form i have created has first name, last name and then 20 check
box options. Also, i want to make sure that they do not pick more than
4 checkboxes. i need the submit button to check that not more than 4
checkboxes are checked, i want to save the names and choices, then
start a new entry and exit
Do you have a question, Daniel? You haven't asked one.
Your database needs to be based on Tables, not starting with your Form. A form
does not contain data; it's just a window, a tool to let you manage data in
tables.
And while your checkbox interface may be tempting - and even may be useful as
a user interface - it's a very poor choice of a data STORAGE structure. You
have (it seems) a classic many to many relationship: each Person has one or
more (up to four?) choices; each of your twenty Choices can be selected by
zero, one or more People. The proper design for this is three tables:
People
PersonID <primary key, perhaps an autonumber>
LastName
FirstName
<other biographical data as appropriate>
Options
OptionID <primary key, probably Number manually assigned 1 - 20>
Option <text, verbal description of this option>
Choices
PersonID <who made this choice>
OptionID <which choice did they make>
You can then design a Form to fit this data structure... rather than the other
way around.
Here are some resources that may help you through the thickets of relational
database design.
Jeff Conrad's resources page:
http://www.accessmvp.com/JConrad/accessjunkie/resources.html
The Access Web resources page:
http://www.mvps.org/access/resources/index.html
Roger Carlson's tutorials, samples and tips:
http://www.rogersaccesslibrary.com/
A free tutorial written by Crystal:
http://allenbrowne.com/casu-22.html
A video how-to series by Crystal:
http://www.YouTube.com/user/LearnAccessByCrystal
MVP Allen Browne's tutorials:
http://allenbrowne.com/links.html#Tutorials
--
John W. Vinson [MVP]
Microsoft's replacements for these newsgroups:
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/accessdev/
http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/addbuz/
and see also
http://www.utteraccess.com