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# Hiding Duplicate Values in Microsoft Access Forms and Reports
- URL: https://nolongerset.com/hiding-duplicate-values/
- Published: 2024-02-14T16:27:37.000Z
- Updated: 2026-05-08T12:38:53.000Z
- Description: A series of articles with basic through advanced techniques for hiding duplicate column values in Microsoft Access reports and continuous forms.
- Author: Mike Wolfe
- Tags: Hiding Dupe Values, Series, #todo, #Import 2026-05-20 02:59

This mini-series will cover basic through advanced use cases for hiding duplicate values in Access forms and reports.

When I talk about "hiding duplicate values," I'm talking about the specific situation where you have detail records in a one-to-many relationship with one or more parent tables, and you want to *show* the parent table values for the first record but *hide* the parent table values for subsequent records.

This is easiest to demonstrate with a couple of example reports. 

## Traditional Grouping

The first report shows the traditional approach of using Grouping and Sorting to create group headers where we display the table data for the parent table(s) and a detail section where we show the records from the detail table.

We'll use the common example of customer invoices, represented by the following three tables and associated values:

- **Customer**: First Name, Last Name
- **Invoice**:Invoice Date, Due Date
- **InvItem**: Description, Item Quantity, Unit Price, Total

Here's what an Invoice Report using traditional grouping looks like:

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/eb/d7/ebd732c1-5f03-4f07-b386-5d08557e15c9/content/images/2024/02/image-16.png)

There are three data sections in this report:

- A CustomerID group header with the first and last names of our customers
- An InvoiceID group header with the invoice and due dates for each invoice
- A Detail section with invoice item details for each invoice

## Hiding Duplicate Values

Another way to present this same data is with a single detail section:

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/eb/d7/ebd732c1-5f03-4f07-b386-5d08557e15c9/content/images/2024/02/image-17.png)

This is a more compact format, but now it's much tougher to identify the individual invoices. 

However, if we hide the duplicate values, we get a report that represents the best of both worlds: a compact format with clear indications of where each customer and invoice starts and ends:

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/eb/d7/ebd732c1-5f03-4f07-b386-5d08557e15c9/content/images/2024/02/image-18.png)

## Article Table of Contents

This series will be broken down into the following articles:

- [Part 0](https://nolongerset.com/sample-data-dupe-values/): Sample Data for the "Hiding Duplicate Values" Series
- [Part 1](https://nolongerset.com/hide-dupe-values-in-reports/): Hiding Duplicate Values in Reports
- [Part 2](https://nolongerset.com/hiding-dupes-via-subqueries/): Hiding Duplicate Values in Continuous Forms via Subqueries
- [Part 3](https://nolongerset.com/hiding-dupes-via-left-joins/): Hiding Duplicate Values in Continuous Forms via Non-Equal Left Joins
- [Part 4](https://nolongerset.com/hide-dupes-via-dcount/): Use DCount() to Make Editable Continuous Forms with Hidden Duplicate Values
- [Part 5](https://nolongerset.com/hide-multi-level-dupes/): Use Custom Functions to Hide Multi-Level Group Headers on Editable Continuous Forms
- [Part 6](https://nolongerset.com/caching-hidden-dupes/): Use Caching to Speed Up Editable Forms with Hidden Duplicate Values
- [Part 7](https://nolongerset.com/invalidating-the-dupes-cache/): Invalidating the Cache on the Hidden Duplicate Values Form
- Part 8: Triggering Cache Invalidation on the Hidden Duplicate Values Form
- Part 9: Forcing a Repaint of Editable Forms with Hidden Duplicate Values

Check back as we add links to the articles as they are written.

NOTE: This series is inspired by Colin Riddington's recent post, *[Hide Duplicate Column Values in Continuous Forms](https://isladogs.co.uk/hide-duplicate-column-values/index.html)*.

***UPDATE*** *\[2024-02-19\]: Split the original Part 2 ("Hiding Duplicate Values in Continuous Forms") into two parts: a subqueries approach and a non-equal left joins approach. Also, added links to Parts 0, 1, and 2.*

***UPDATE*** *\[2024-02-20\]: Added link to Part 3 and updated article tags.*

**UPDATE* \[2024-02-21\]: Split the previous Part 4 ("Making Editable Continuous Forms with Hidden Duplicate Values") into two parts: a DCount() approach and a custom functions approach. Also, added link to part 4.*

***UPDATE*** *\[2024-02-24\]: Added links to Parts 5 and 6.*

***UPDATE*** *\[2024-02-26\]: Introduced a new part 7 and part 8, renaming the previous part 7 to part 9\. Added link to the new part 7\.*