Coming from VB to access programming is quite a baffling experience.
There seems to be no consistent way to predict how a form is going to
appear.

I anyone can clue me in, I'll be eternally grateful.

-how to you make the so-called headers and footers visible/invisible?
-how to determine (what do you drag) the size of the form?
-how to determine size and behaviour of subforms?
etc., etc., etc.

controls don't even necessarily show up where drawn.

I appreciate it onehundredfold.