Access
Expressions
Popular functions
Popular functions
MsgBox Function
Access for Microsoft 365 Access 2021 Access 2019 Access 2016 Access 2013 More...Less
In an Access desktop database, the MsgBox Function displays a message in a dialog box, waits for the user to click a button, and returns an Integer indicating which button the user clicked.
Syntax
MsgBox ( prompt [, buttons ] [, title ] [, helpfile ] [, context ] )
The MsgBox function syntax has these arguments:
| Argument | Description |
|---|---|
| prompt | Required. String expression displayed as the message in the dialog box. The maximum length of prompt is approximately 1024 characters, depending on the width of the characters used. If prompt consists of more than one line, you can separate the lines using a carriage return character (Chr(13)), a linefeed character (Chr(10)), or carriage return – linefeed character combination (Chr(13) & Chr(10)) between each line. |
| buttons | Optional. numeric expression that is the sum of values specifying the number and type of buttons to display, the icon style to use, the identity of the default button, and the modality of the message box. If omitted, the default value for buttons is 0. |
| title | Optional. String expression displayed in the title bar of the dialog box. If you omit title, the application name is placed in the title bar. |
| helpfile | Optional. String expression that identifies the Help file to use to provide context-sensitive Help for the dialog box. If helpfile is provided, context must also be provided. |
| context | Optional. Numeric expression that is the Help context number assigned to the appropriate Help topic by the Help author. If context is provided, helpfile must also be provided. |
Settings
The buttonsargument settings are:
| Constant | Value | Description |
|---|---|---|
| vbOKOnly | Display OK button only. | |
| vbOKCancel | 1 | Display OK and Cancel buttons. |
| vbAbortRetryIgnore | 2 | Display Abort, Retry, and Ignore buttons. |
| vbYesNoCancel | 3 | Display Yes, No, and Cancel buttons. |
| vbYesNo | 4 | Display Yes and No buttons. |
| vbRetryCancel | 5 | Display Retry and Cancel buttons. |
| vbCritical | 16 | Display Critical Message icon. |
| vbQuestion | 32 | Display Warning Query icon. |
| vbExclamation | 48 | Display Warning Message icon. |
| vbInformation | 64 | Display Information Message icon. |
| vbDefaultButton1 | First button is default. | |
| vbDefaultButton2 | 256 | Second button is default. |
| vbDefaultButton3 | 512 | Third button is default. |
| vbDefaultButton4 | 768 | Fourth button is default. |
| vbApplicationModal | Application modal; the user must respond to the message box before continuing work in the current application. | |
| vbSystemModal | 4096 | System modal; all applications are suspended until the user responds to the message box. |
| vbMsgBoxHelpButton | 16384 | Adds Help button to the message box |
| VbMsgBoxSetForeground | 65536 | Specifies the message box window as the foreground window |
| vbMsgBoxRight | 524288 | Text is right aligned |
| vbMsgBoxRtlReading | 1048576 | Specifies text should appear as right-to-left reading on Hebrew and Arabic systems |
The first group of values (0–5) describes the number and type of buttons displayed in the dialog box; the second group (16, 32, 48, 64) describes the icon style; the third group (0, 256, 512) determines which button is the default; and the fourth group (0, 4096) determines the modality of the message box. When adding numbers to create a final value for the buttons argument, use only one number from each group.
Note:These constants are specified by Visual Basic for Applications. As a result, the names can be used anywhere in your code in place of the actual values.
Return Values
| Constant | Value | Description |
|---|---|---|
| vbOK | 1 | OK |
| vbCancel | 2 | Cancel |
| vbAbort | 3 | Abort |
| vbRetry | 4 | Retry |
| vbIgnore | 5 | Ignore |
| vbYes | 6 | Yes |
| vbNo | 7 | No |
Remarks
When both helpfile and context are provided, the user can press F1 (Windows) or HELP (macOS) to view the Help topic corresponding to the context. Some host applications, for example, Microsoft Excel, also automatically add a Help button to the dialog box.
If the dialog box displays a Cancel button, pressing the ESC key has the same effect as clicking Cancel. If the dialog box contains a Help button, context-sensitive Help is provided for the dialog box. However, no value is returned until one of the other buttons is clicked.
Note:To specify more than the first named argument, you must use MsgBox in an expression. To omit some positional arguments, you must include the corresponding comma delimiter.
Example
Note:Examples that follow demonstrate the use of this function in a Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) module.
This example uses the MsgBox function to display a critical-error message in a dialog box with Yes and No buttons. The No button is specified as the default response. The value returned by the MsgBox function depends on the button chosen by the user. This example assumes that DEMO.HLP is a Help file that contains a topic with a Help context number equal to 1000.
Dim Msg, Style, Title, Help, Ctxt, Response, MyStringMsg = "Do you want to continue?"Style = vbYesNo + vbCritical + vbDefaultButton2 Title = "MsgBox Demonstration" Help = "DEMO.HLP"Ctxt = 1000Response = MsgBox(Msg, Style, Title, Help, Ctxt)If Response = vbYes Then ' User chose Yes. MyString = "Yes" ' Perform some action.Else ' User chose No. MyString = "No" ' Perform some action.End If
Need more help?
Want more options?
Discover Community
Explore subscription benefits, browse training courses, learn how to secure your device, and more.
Microsoft 365 subscription benefits
Microsoft 365 training
Microsoft security
Accessibility center
Communities help you ask and answer questions, give feedback, and hear from experts with rich knowledge.
