To remove the Input Mask from a Control on a Form, in Design View,
right-click the Control, and Choose Properties, then in the InputMask
property, just delete the Mask.
That answer was so easy, however, that I think there must be more to your
question than is appparent.
The Input Mask wizard allows you to store just the value, or the value with
the formatting... perhaps that is what you want... to have the guidance of
the Mask when entering, but store the phone number into a Text field without
the formatting?
How are you passing the number to the FAX function? I suspect you are not
actually transferring the number directly from the Control on the Form, but
some other way
To remove the Input Mask from a Control on a Form, in Design View,
right-click the Control, and Choose Properties, then in the InputMask
property, just delete the Mask.
That answer was so easy, however, that I think there must be more to your
question than is appparent.
The Input Mask wizard allows you to store just the value, or the value
with
the formatting... perhaps that is what you want... to have the guidance of
the Mask when entering, but store the phone number into a Text field
without
the formatting?
How are you passing the number to the FAX function? I suspect you are not
actually transferring the number directly from the Control on the Form,
but
some other way
* It will not help to change the type of Control
(as you obviously determined).
* You keep referring to how the phone number
is _displayed_, but I can't see how that
should matter, either.
What matters is how the number is _stored_, unless the FAX software is
extracting the formatted number from the Report. Try deleting the Input Mask
from the Field definition in the Table, saving the change, and then opening
the Table -- if all you see are the numbers, no special characters or
spaces, then, as my colleagues from The Mother Country sometimes say, "Bob's
your uncle!"
And, if the data is "formatted". Unless there's some other aspect of the
database application that relies on the actual data being formatted with
( ) - and blanks, it will be easy, perhaps even trivially easy, to remove
those... the Replace function in an Update Query is your friend.
If the users really want the Input Mask (mine rarely do, because if they
click in the wrong place, it causes them more trauma than forcing a format
will ever save), you can add the Input Mask to the Form into which the data
is entered... create it with the Input Mask wizard and choose the option to
not save the ( ) - and blank characters with the data.
For the future, it'll be good to keep in mind that, very often, storing a
Format or an Input Mask in the TableDef will (as seems to be your
experience) be more trouble than it is worth.
Just for your information, the only production database applications I have
ever released "into the wild" containing an Input Mask were a few that
resulted from Y2K remediation, the purpose of which was to force entry ofa
four-digit year. Unless you are certain that there will never be any non-US
phone numbers, using the default phone number input mask will [always |
generally | sometimes] come back to haunt you.
--
Larry Linson
Microsoft Office Access MVP
Co-Author, Microsoft Access Small Business Solutions, Wiley 2010
To remove the Input Mask from a Control on a Form, in Design View,
right-click the Control, and Choose Properties, then in the InputMask
property, just delete the Mask.That answer was so easy, however, that I think there must be more to your
question than is appparent.The Input Mask wizard allows you to store just the value, or the value
with
the formatting... perhaps that is what you want... to have the guidanceof
the Mask when entering, but store the phone number into a Text field
without
the formatting?How are you passing the number to the FAX function? I suspect you are not
actually transferring the number directly from the Control on the Form,
but
some other way
Thanks for the prompt reply.
Unfortunately that doesn't work. The input mask is in a table, so that
even if the control has no input mask, the format displays as (123)
555-0000. The table is already populated with thousands of phone
numbers so changing that is not an option. I tried to change the
control to a list box and that did not help either. The fax service is
an internet fax, so I am using send object to email the report to the
service in the format of (e-mail address removed).
yn
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