First Published 4 Apr 2025                 Last Updated 26 June 2025

Two long awaited and much requested items have just been publicly announced via the Access Roadmap.

UPDATE - 26 June 2025

Originally these items were scheduled for rollout in June / July, but both have delayed until September due to unanticipated, high priority security work affecting all Office applications.

The Access roadmap has been updated with both rollout dates changed to September.



1.   Add Zoom slider magnification to Microsoft Access

Access will add a magnification slider (10% to 500%) in the status bar at the lower right of the application, similar to the feature in Word, PowerPoint, and Excel. It will also be keyboard accessible and available on the ribbon.
This responsive behaviour will be provided so that forms, reports and all controls can be adjusted for different screen resolutions and form factors.

In other words, Access will finally have a built-in feature similar to the functionality provided by my Automatic Form Resizing code.
However, it is expected that this native functionality will have a broader scope.

Rollout of this new feature was expected to start in June 2025 but has been delayed until September 2025. It is likely that various parts of this feature will be released in 4 stages over a period of months starting with form view, then report view followed by datasheets and finally design view for both forms and reports.



2.   Modernize Access Forms and Reports to work well on Large Format Monitors.

As part of this, the current 22.75 inch limit on Access form and report widths will be removed so that both types of object can make effective use of the space available on large format monitors.
The new functionality will significantly increase this limit, probably by far more than just doubling it. Details to follow.

Currently it is only possible to exceed that limit with datasheet forms and, in some cases, using anchoring. See my article Create Forms Wider Than the Access Limit

Rollout of this new feature was expected to start in July 2025 but has also been delayed until September 2025.



The Access team had already given an early indication of the scope of both these new features to Access MVPs.
Similar details were supplied as part of their presentation to the online Access DevCon conference on Thur 10 April 2025. For more details, see Access DevCon Agenda.



Video

Karl Donaubauer has created two videos of the Access team's recent presentation at Access DevCon.

The two improvements listed on the Access roadmap are explained in this video. Total time = 09:12.



See also Karl's article on the Access Forever blog: The New Access Features in 2025



Feedback

Please use the contact form below to let me know whether you found this article interesting/useful or if you have any questions/comments.

Please also consider making a donation towards the costs of maintaining this website. Thank you



Colin Riddington           Mendip Data Systems                 Last Updated 26 June 2025

Return to Access Blog Page

Return to Top