• Default Font for Forms & Controls ? (AXP 10.2627.2625)

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    WSPeterNRoth
    AskWoody Lounger
    January 18, 2002 at 4:26 pm #365606

    The default font for controls in my system is 8 pt MS Sans Serif. How do I change this default to 10 pt Tahoma?

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    • WBell
      AskWoody_MVP
      January 18, 2002 at 5:09 pm #564686

      If you want to change the default font on datasheet views, you do that in Tool/Options and click the Datasheet tab where there is a combo box you can set the default font. If you want to change the default font for reports or forms, you do that by changing the Normal template to a form/report that has the font settings that you want. You do that on Tools/Options Forms/Reports. Actually you can change lots of other things beside the fonts using templates. Do a search on “Form and report templates” and choose the “Specify a new template for forms and reports” and then click the For more info button to see further details. Hope this helps.

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      • WSPeterNRoth
        AskWoody Lounger
        January 18, 2002 at 9:42 pm #564735

        Yeah datasheet defaults are obvious.

        AXP has 0 (that is, nil, nada, zilch) on “Form and report templates”. The closest that help gets is templates for webpages/document libraries in Team Sites. [It looks like MS is moving to .NET faster than i thought] And there a references to creating an input mask. (???)

        The options under File | Save As are: Form, Report, Data Access Page.

        File | Export is not much help…

        What I wound up doing:
        1. add all of the controls from the toolbox to a dummy form.
        2. select them all.
        3. Change the font size of all the controls
        4. Click Format | Autformat | Customize and save the form as an autoformat option which I called ‘Tahoma10’
        5. It seems to work…

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        • WScharlotte
          AskWoody Lounger
          January 18, 2002 at 9:50 pm #564739

          You don’t save a form *as* a template, you simply designate that form to use as a template. Even when you create one and designate it as a template, the only thing you’ll see when you create a new form is the background and size that look the same as your template. Any controls you put on the template form are NOT added to your new form. It’s only their properties that get picked up form the template, not the controls themselves, if that is of any help to you.

          If XP truly has removed the ability to designate a template form from Tools–>Options, then try naming your form “Normal” and see if its properties get picked up the next time you create a new form.

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        • WBell
          AskWoody_MVP
          January 19, 2002 at 12:30 am #564758

          Boy are you correct about the Help in XP – you can’t find it by searching. I was working on 2000 earlier today, but now am in my own office. I don’t have SP1 installed yet, but I seriously doubt that they fixed the Help file.

          Never the less, there is a help topic if you go to Contents on Help and then drill down to Forms/Creating Forms you will find the third help topic is “Set the default template for forms and reports. Not to be deterred, I went to the web help thinking I would find it there. Nothing, nada, zilch. As Woody fumed months ago, they didn’t do enough QC on XP before they released it. Anyhow, the help that is there isn’t very informative, but you can make it work, and we do that for large projects. Your approach works, but you have to do it for every form, and every time you add a new control to a form you have to go back and set the font properties. One of the frustrations of technology. Have a good weekend.

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        • WSPeterNRoth
          AskWoody Lounger
          January 19, 2002 at 1:34 am #564763

          HKEY_USERSgobbledegookSoftwareMicrosoftOffice10.0AccessSettings
          contains a ‘FormTemplate’ key and the form name as the value. There’s some other interesting stuff in there.

          It contains the default font, but the font size is not stored; it’s probably hardwired into Access (egads).

          Moving to a different database means I retain the default font, but I lose the default font size for the controls!

          Perhaps there’s an ini file that still exists for Access? I will hunt for that next.

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    • WSMarkD
      AskWoody Lounger
      January 18, 2002 at 5:14 pm #564687

      I’m not aware of any universal settings for controls. I’m not using AXP, in A2K you can designate a form as a template for new forms (other than those created by socalled “Wizard”) on the Tools>Options “Forms/Reports” tab, “Form Template” box. Add controls to the template form, set fonts & other settings as desired, then highlight the control or controls you want to standardize and enter “Set Control Defaults” command from Format menu. New forms created w/o assistance of wizard will reflect template form’s default control settings. However, template settings are not “retroactive” if you open already existing forms in design view, you’d have to set the default settings for existing forms individually. Same as above applies to report templates.

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      • WSPeterNRoth
        AskWoody Lounger
        January 18, 2002 at 9:23 pm #564733

        Hi Mark – AXP does NOT have a convenient way to change the default form template. One can type in a new name, but there is no “Form Template” box.

        There has to be something in the registry that controls this…

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        • WScharlotte
          AskWoody Lounger
          January 18, 2002 at 9:46 pm #564736

          If there is no “form template” box, where are you typing in the new name? All the Options dialog does is let you point at a form or report and say “this contains the defaults I want to use”. The normal defaults are built into Access and have been as long as I can remember, clear back to the ini file days.

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          • WSPeterNRoth
            AskWoody Lounger
            January 18, 2002 at 9:50 pm #564738

            There is a ‘Form Template’ box which has the word ‘Normal’ in it. Suppose I want to use the unknown template “Petes”; where is Petes template? i know what i want it to be, i just dont know where it is, or how to make a new one.

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            • WScharlotte
              AskWoody Lounger
              January 18, 2002 at 9:55 pm #564740

              See my earlier post. You create a new form and set its properties to the colors, size, etc. that you want. You add one each of the controls you want to format and you set their properties to suit. Then you select them all and click on the Format menu and select Set Control Defaults (please note that you can’t save 3 different formats for textboxes as the control default, you’re limited to one default per control type). Then you save the form. After that, you enter that form name instead of “Normal” in the Form Template box and Access will pick up those properties the next time you create a form. There’s nothing to stop you from having multiple form templates and changing them through code if you need to.

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            • WSPeterNRoth
              AskWoody Lounger
              January 19, 2002 at 1:43 am #564766

              Access is TOO helpful, ie, is getting in the way.

              There doesnt seem to be any way to specify ‘all buttons shall be 1″ wide with this font of that size’, so even tho i save some ‘defaults’, Access does its own thing and makes it an Access button, not a Pete’s button.

              I wish i had some more control over the GUI aspects, but for that it looks like I will have to write my own ActiveX button. geez.

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            • WScharlotte
              AskWoody Lounger
              January 19, 2002 at 2:14 am #564768

              Turn the wizard off and see what happens when you create a button. If you just click the commandbar button in the toolbox and then single click in the form where you want the button, the size and font of the newly created button should match your template. The wizard uses whatever is stored in its own database when it creates one.

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            • WSPeterNRoth
              AskWoody Lounger
              January 19, 2002 at 2:43 am #564773

              Wizard off, a command button assumes a shape that encloses the text.

              Wizard on, it gets the height right, but misses the width.

              Bizarre.

              Where IS the wizard database?

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            • WScharlotte
              AskWoody Lounger
              January 19, 2002 at 4:19 am #564780

              Maybe that’s one of the differences in XP. In 2000, it gets the height and width right with the wizard *off* unless you set control defaults on the current form. Then those default override the template.

              Many of the wizards, if not all of them, are databases themselves. They contain the forms and tables needed to display those dialogs and walk you through building whatever it is you’re doing. They’re also locked, so you can’t get in and muck about with them, although each new version usually has partially locked copies of the wizards that developers can download and play with. You can’t change their funtionality, but you can see how they work.

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            • WSPeterNRoth
              AskWoody Lounger
              January 19, 2002 at 2:29 pm #564837

              Partially locked copies would allow some reprogramming as add-ins. Where would you suggest I look for such beasts?

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            • WScharlotte
              AskWoody Lounger
              January 19, 2002 at 3:24 pm #564843

              They already are add-ins, in effect, and I wish you luck in trying to modify them because I’m sure those are the parts that are locked. grin The things are provided as learning tools so you can go on to build your *own* add-ins and wizards, not to monkey with theirs, after all.

              Earlier versions were included with the ADH, I believe. I haven’t looked at the CD for the 2002 ADH to see what’s on it, but that’s a good place to start. I can’t remember if they came with the Ofice developer version or not.

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            • WSPeterNRoth
              AskWoody Lounger
              January 19, 2002 at 3:52 pm #564850

              Thanks – i’ll check the CD first. What with the paucity of Help, I am not sanguine about finding anything.

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