2007 Microsoft® Office System Step by Step, Second Edition

Specifying the Format of Data in a Field

When you use masks in tables or forms, people entering information can see at a glance the format in which they should make entries and how long they should be. You can use the InputMask property to control how data is entered in text, number, date/time, and currency fields. This property has three sections, separated by semicolons, like the mask for a telephone number, shown here:

!\(000") "000\-0000;1;#

The first section contains characters that are used as placeholders for the information to be typed, as well as characters such as parentheses and hyphens. Together, all these characters control the appearance of the entry. The following table explains the purpose of the most common input mask characters: ...