how to preserve appearance of the subforms

Hi,
GOAL:
Easy way to edit a mainform composed of several subforms;
IMPORTANT PART OF GOAL:
Preserve appearance of the subforms.

SCHEMA:
My information has a structure:
One record has several “chapters” (e.g. chapter1, chapter2, chapter3).
Each “chapter” has several “portions” (e. g. portion1, portion2, portion3).

All relations are one to one.
Each “chapter” contains the same group of “portions”.

All the “portions” could be merely additional attribute columns of a singe “chapter” table,
but I thought the repetition of structure might make it easier to create a large total form,
which would be composed of subforms for each chapter. Each chapter subform would have sub-subforms for each of the portions.
(This would allow easier future edits if the number of “chapters” increased or the style of the “portions” changed.).

ATTEMPTED METHOD:
I have created several tables using tools/SQL. (Then create table, etc).
I have made each of these into a form (layout choice2) using the form wizard.

To act as the mainform for the “chapter” subforms (which have “portion” sub-subforms),
I made one table and form with only a single attribute column called chapter_id

Using the form navigator belonging to a future-subform, I can copy the future-subform into the form navigator of the mainform.

THE DIFFICULTY:
The newsubform is on top of the mainform and no longer has it’s controls arranged the same as in the original subform.

POSSIBLE BUT MESSY ANSWER:
Select all of a future subform using form navigator: right click on the highlighted green corner group and choose “position and size”
Set “position vertical” to a big number (to avoid overlap with the controls on the mainform).
But the size of the resultant subform becomes small and its controls overlap onto themselves (might be able to write down width and height numbers from original form and then copy them into the “position and size window” but this is cumbersome and first attempt appears not to work.
I have also tried combinations of anchor types: to page, paragraph, char, as char and am not sure which should work best.
QUESTION:
How can I easily preserve the original appearance of a subform when it is inserted into a mainform?

Thanks