Modifying Specific Controls on a Form

Not all controls on your form may be of equal importance. You may want to modify the look of a specific control to make it stand out, or you may want to modify the control behavior. When designing forms, be careful not to over design. Too many different colors, styles or behaviors can distract from accurate data entry.

To modify the properties of a specific control:

1. With the form open in Design View, right-click the control that you want to modify.
2. Notice that there are many formatting options available from the shortcut menu. You can change the background color, font color, and which special effect is applied to the control.
3. More formatting options are available through the Properties dialog box. Select Properties from the shortcut menu.
4. Click the Format tab if necessary.
5. Scroll through the list of formatting properties.
6. Click the box next to the property that you want to change. Some properties have a drop-down list with specific choices. For other properties, you enter a specific value.
7. When you have made the changes you want, close the Properties dialog box by clicking the Close box in the upper right corner.
8. Switch to Form View to see the changes you've made.

Common properties to modify are the use of scroll bars and growing or shrinking the size of the control based on data the user enters. If you turn off scroll bars, users can only see the data that fits within the specific control dimensions. If you turn on Can Grow or Can Shrink, the control area will grow and/or shrink to fit the data.

Form control properties are discussed in detail in the expert tutorial Creating and Modifying Forms.

To open a control's Properties dialog box, you can also:

1. Click the control once to select it; then click the Properties toolbar button.
2. Click the control once to select it; then select Properties from the View menu.