Beginning InfoPath™ 2003

Chapter 8. Working with Sections

One of the powerful features of InfoPath is the ability to create sections that provide additional control over data for the developer of the form. Using sections with InfoPath forms means much more than this does in other applications such as Word and Access. In those other products, when you talk of sections you are talking about areas of forms or documents where data is entered, but using sections in these applications does not accomplish nearly as much as it does in InfoPath. When you specify a section on a form in InfoPath, you can have a whole section displayed or hidden with the data behind it (bound to it) being affected as well. Data can be repeated, optionally displayed, or tied to specific data in a preceding section, much as the subform controls are used in Access.

The majority of the different types of sections available in InfoPath forms have been touched upon at one time or another in the chapters leading up to this one. Now it is time to see just how powerful sections are, and what you can do with them. In this chapter you will:

• See the various types of sections available in InfoPath.

• Examine using choice sections.

• Work with optional section and repeating sections.

• Look at useful section properties.

• Filter data in a section.