We have touched on some of the macro actions that you will be using most often.
Now, in this lesson I would like to show you some other useful macro actions, explain what they do, and where you will likely use them. To do that, take a look at the following table:
| Macro Action | Purpose | Where Used |
| Beep | Makes a beep | Whenever you want to get the user’s attention; To signal the end of a process; or if you are using the MsgBox macro action, which has an argument to beep for you |
| Close | Closes objects | Useful for creating a close command button on forms |
| CopyObject | Copies Access objects from the current database to itself or another database | Good for when you want to make a backup table before running a query that makes major changes to the data |
| DeleteObject | Deletes objects from the database | Good for deleting temporary tables |
| Echo | Turns off all displays to the screen | Useful when you are making a lot of changes and don’t want the screen to flash (Use with caution. As with SetWarnings, be sure to turn Echo back to Yes when done.) |
| HourGlass | Displays an hourglass for the cursor | Nice to use when you have a long query running and you don’t want the user to think they can just do other things; the hourglass encourages them to wait until the query is complete |
| Maximize | Maximizes a form | Great in the OnOpen event of a form; use the Restore command in the OnClose of a form to restore the form |
| MsgBox | Displays a message box with many options | Used for displaying a message to the user |
| OutputTo | Outputs an Access object to another file | Great when you need to send a report or data to someone in another file format such as Excel or Text |
| Quit | Quits a database application | Good choice for a switchboard command button so the user can get out of the database |
These are just a few of the useful macro actions you can use. Play with some of them to get used to them.
For now, check out this matching applet to get some practice.
The next lesson is the module wrap-up. You will get a brief review of the topics you have covered in this module.
Also, you can take a quiz that will help you verify what you have learned and discover topics that you might want to review in a more detailed manner.