| Lesson 13 | Format form controls |
| Objective | Format form controls in Design and Form views. |
Format Form Controls in Design Form Views
What AutoForms and the Form Wizard do for you is get all the fields you want onto a form. Once there, you may not like the way they look.Fortunately, character formatting is one of the easiest editing tasks you can do to a form.
Character formatting
Some character formatting can be done in Form view and you do not even have to deal with Design view. Specifically, you can change the background color, or border of any control containing data from a field by selecting the field and using the buttons on the formatting toolbar.
Despite the convenience of changing formats in Form view, I find that I prefer Design view whereI can get all my formatting tasks done, including formatting labels. Access also has a number of AutoFormats that you can use to format your form.
Changing character formatting in Access is a similar process to changing character formatting in any Microsoft Office application.
First, you select the control you want to work with, then use the appropriate buttons and options on the formatting toolbar to change the format. The following MouseOver explains what the other options do.
Despite the convenience of changing formats in Form view, I find that I prefer Design view whereI can get all my formatting tasks done, including formatting labels. Access also has a number of AutoFormats that you can use to format your form.
Changing character formatting in Access is a similar process to changing character formatting in any Microsoft Office application.
First, you select the control you want to work with, then use the appropriate buttons and options on the formatting toolbar to change the format. The following MouseOver explains what the other options do.
- Shows the current control selected
- Choose a font from the list
- Choose a font size from the list
- Makes the selected control bold
- Makes the selected control italic
- Makes the selected control underlined
- Left justifies the text within the control
- Centers the text within the control
- Right justifies the text within the control
- Select a background color for the control
- Select a font color for the control
- Select a border or line color for the control
- Select a border or line width for the control
- Choose from more options, including Special Effects
Access Formatting Toolbar
Ater you change the format of a control you may find that you need to resize it.
Once a control is formatted, you can use the Format Painter button to copy the format and apply it other controls.
In the next lesson, learn to create a calculated control on your form.
Once a control is formatted, you can use the Format Painter button to copy the format and apply it other controls.
In the next lesson, learn to create a calculated control on your form.
