How To Make Access Forms Look Professional

Whether you are starting a new database, or renovating an old one, Access Form Blueprint is one of the most entertaining and also important steps. Do information technology correct, and you lot have a highly functional, productive awarding with a professional await and experience to hand to your users.

In the course of daily business, we see a lot of our customer�southward Microsoft Admission forms. Some are great, and some are stuck in 1998 pattern paradigms. This article gives you ideas for key means to better your MS Access forms in a few minutes.

1	Groundwork Color Access 2003 and previous versions utilize a dark grayness as the default background colour for forms. While this was the norm in 1995, nowadays it's a sign that an application is stale. The fix is easy! Open your course in Design View, select the detail background, and change the color in the toolbar/ribbon. This, by far, is the easiest and fastest style to give your forms a new wait. Aging grey Modernistic white
ii	Consistent font use The visual appeal of your forms is largely determined by how fast your viewer tin can mentally process the data. Surprisingly, little things like font size, font blazon (family unit), and what is bold or underlined tin make a huge difference. Specialists in the Human Factors discipline sometimes call this cerebral dissonance. How many distractions does your brain need to ignore earlier it can start really understanding what is important. If everything is bold, underlined, or displayed in unlike fonts, sizes, and colors, your users will get overwhelmed. It volition take longer for them to understand where to showtime, what is important, and what tin can they ignore. Font Weight and Underline If every characterization and field is bold on your course (and we've seen a lot of this), it tin convey the message to your user that your grade is screaming at them. If every label is underlined, it also loses the desired effect. From a young historic period, our brains learn that important things are bold and/or underlined. So nosotros recommend making sure your forms take very piffling bolding, and even less underlining. Font Family unit Access 2000 through 2003 used a mixture of Tahoma and MS Sans Serif fonts in forms and reports. Admission 2007 started using Calibri, a more generous font used in most Office 2007 applications. Select all the labels and controls on your class with your mouse in Pattern View, and change them to one font. It doesn't matter which you choose (Arial, Verdana, Calibri are usually preferred for on-screen brandish). Font Size Information technology's obvious to state, just annihilation larger on screen volition demand your users attention (for better or worse). So use sizing sparingly. Unless your audience is visually challenged (age, sight), a font size of 10pt is ordinarily acceptable for all entry fields and labels. Required Fields In many cases, you have one or more than required fields on your forms you want to crave input for. Yous accept the tabular array or form validation rules set to require input. What's more frustrating for a user than getting those error letters after you think you've filled everything out right? There are two ways you can visually indicate to the user that a field is required: one) Make required field labels bold. This works all-time when y'all don't plan to use bold for other purposes. 2) Add together a red asterisk label next to the characterization of required fields.
3	Logical Groupings and Alignment The next of import stride is to make sure your grade fields are grouped in a logical fashion, and aligned to a common grid. Fortunately Admission provides easy tools for both. Group Group fields accomplishes ii key things. First, your user will know where related information is on your grade. Second, you tin begin to depict the line betwixt key data you demand from the user or the user needs to come across, and information that is less important. The two major tools y'all can employ are the Option Group Box or the Rectangle. If you add an Option Group box to your form, it will ask you what options you want to display to the user. Click abolish, and you lot'll have the pick frame on your course without any radio buttons. Alignment When a course on the web, in Access, or even at the doctor's office has some boxes that are slightly off alignment, we know. For some people, it's a chuckle, for others, it'south cause for real irritation and distraction. Gladly, Access has several tools to make this easy. In Access 2000, 2002, and 2003, they are in the toolbar: In Access 2007 and 2010, the Ribbon has made them more easily attainable: Select the controls you want to marshal or make a consequent size, and apply the tools shown in a higher place to make them consistently aligned and/or sized. For sizing, you tin can exercise a great deal to relieve infinite on your forms while also making them expect cleaner:
4	Clear navigation Clear navigation is important to any user. Navigation gives the user context of where they are, and what they can do in your awarding. In that location are several ways to provide for this demand: Custom Groups in Access 2007 Custom groups, favorites Access 2000/2002/2003 offers the Database Window for basic navigation. In Access 2007/2010 the Navigation Pane provides a persistent navigation pane to motion between objects. Both are fine for developers and power users, but less adequate for coincidental users or when you lot want to make sure your users aren't getting themselves into trouble "exploring" your Admission database. The all-time you lot can do with these is to create a favorite grouping (2000-2003) or custom grouping (2007+) to help users place key forms they need to use. Admission Switchboard Managing director Fortunately, Access includes a born menu system, the Access Switchboard Manager. It allows you to create an unlimited bureaucracy of menus and sub-switchboards. You can specify what each Admission Switchboard menu push button tin practice (limited to about viii options). The Access Switchboard is quick and easy to put in identify. That's the good. The downsides are an antiquated 1995 wait, and any customizations apply to every page (unless you lot make it to the internal VB workings) of your switchboard. Admission Switchboard Manager Custom Navigation Menu You can always create your own navigation bill of fare grade. All you demand to exercise is create a new bare form that isn't bound to a table (an unbound grade) add together buttons, then macros or VB code for each button to launch your forms. Frequently a fun way to make your application have it'south own character. Access 2010 Navigation course types Access 2010 Navigation Forms Access 2010 introduced a new navigation form type accessible via the Create Ribbon tab. The navigation form allows you to drop in a form to display within the menu area. Unlike the Switchboard Manager, the Navigation forms are not readily configurable. You can hands change them at design fourth dimension, but different the Switchboard Manager, they are managed in the Design View instead of via a configuration menu. UI Builder OpenGate's UI Architect tool is another pop fashion to add together menu navigation to your databases. UI Builder is configurable, provides more pre-built menu commands than the Admission Switchboard supports submenu buttons, user level menus, and pre-packaged features. To avoid sounding like an advertisement, we'll just point you to the production page and product demo video where you can learn more.