>I plan on having a button for the user to append the records. But when there not appending, I just want the user to view the data in the textboxes and not alter it.

John,

Give your form a new property named Editing and set it to .F. in teh property sheet. Then in your edit button put;

THISFORM.Editing = .T.
THISFORM.Refresh()

In the form's refresh you can set the enabled property to be the same as the editing property;

FOR EACH oCont IN THISFORM.Controls
  IF PEMSTATUS(oCont,"Enabled",5)
     oCont.Enabled = THISFORM.Editing
  ENDIF
ENDFOR

Then in your save and cancel buttons put;

THISFORM.Editing = .F.
THISFORM.Refresh()

Beside the code to same or revert the user's work.

You can affect the visual display by using the DisabledForeColor and DisabledBackColor properties of each control. Make them so the colors are different than the enabled colors, because it is always a good idea to give the user visual clues to what they can and cannot do.