Back Color, Alternate Back Color and Themes

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About this lesson

Choose and customize themes for forms, animate Command Buttons and define an alternate back color so that rows will display in alternating colors.

Quick reference

Back Color, Alternate Back Color, and Themes

Application Terminology

Alternate Back Color

By defining an Alternate Back Color for a section that is different than the Back Color, rows in that section will display in alternating colors.

Back Color

The Form Header section has a Back Color property that determines the fill color behind the controls.

The Detail section has Back Color and Alternate Back Color Properties

Decrease Font Size

The shortcut key to decrease the font size of selected text is

Increase Font Size

The shortcut key to increase the font size of selected text is   

Office Theme

The Office Theme determines how the ribbon and other common elements will look.

Theme

Form Themes define colors, fonts, and sizes.  Remember, if you use a font that others who use your application do not have, they will have to be installed.  Refer to the Steps section for how to do this.

Theme Colors

The colors for your chosen form Theme will be displayed on the Theme Colors palette on the top row.  Shades of the color are displayed under each color.  Theme Colors change when the Theme is changed.

Standard Colors

Standard Colors keep their look even when the theme is changed.  Choose More Colors to pick a color from a palette with more colors, set RGB (Red, Green, Blue) values, and change the shade of a color using the shade slider.

Steps

Animate Command Buttons

  • To animate Command Buttons, set the following properties:

Choose and Customize Themes for Forms

  1. Choose and Customize Themes for Forms on the DESIGN ribbon of FORM DESIGN TOOLS.


     
  2. Change themes

     
  3. Colors

     
  4. Fonts
  5. Customize Fonts

     

Windows Fonts and Features

  1. To change the fonts and features available for Windows applications, go to the Control Panel and select Fonts.
     
  2. Press Win-X
     
  3. Choose Control Panel

     
  4. Select Fonts from the Control Panel
  5. Fonts installed on your system will be displayed

  6. Click More Options in the upper right to change how you see the information

                       
  7. To see a list of available fonts, click

    and then click additional links, such as:

    Fonts available for Windows
    https://www.fonts.com/font/microsoft-corporation

    Browse fonts:
    https://www.fonts.com/browse
     
  8. To install a font from a file you have received, select the OTF file from Windows Explorer or My Computer, right-click, and choose Install from the Shortcut menu.

     
    or drag a font file to the C:\Windows\Fonts folder.
  9. To open the Character Map (CharMap.exe), choose Find a character


    or press Win-R to run a program, and type CharMap
  10. To add features, choose Manage optional features, and click + to Add a feature


    Select the feature you want and follow additional directions.

 

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  • 00:04 This is Lesson 29 of Access 2013.
  • 00:09 When there are many records,
  • 00:11 it is helpful to alternate the Back Color
  • 00:14 so it is easier to follow the data on the same record.
  • 00:18 Hi, this is Crystal.
  • 00:20 In this lesson, you will learn about Back Color
  • 00:22 and Alternate Back Color for sections of forms and reports.
  • 00:28 You will also learn about Form Themes and the Office Theme.
  • 00:33 The way you build forms and reports,
  • 00:35 as a developer, which you already are,
  • 00:37 or are becoming with these lessons, is similar.
  • 00:41 As such, many of the properties you set for reports
  • 00:44 work the same way in forms.
  • 00:47 Select the Customers table in the Navigation Pane.
  • 00:51 From the Create ribbon, in the Forms group, choose
  • 00:53 More Forms > Multiple Items to create a continuous form.
  • 00:58 In Design View, the Form Header is selected.
  • 01:02 On the Property Sheet, the Back Color property
  • 01:05 is set to a lighter shade of Text 2, which is a theme color.
  • 01:10 We are going to explore themes and how to change them.
  • 01:15 For purposes of illustration, create a command button with
  • 01:18 Caption = Test
  • 01:21 Name = cmdTest
  • 01:25 Since there are no events,
  • 01:26 it won't do anything but change color.
  • 01:30 On the FORM DESIGN TOOLS, DESIGN ribbon,
  • 01:33 look at choices for Themes.
  • 01:36 As you hover over each of the built-in themes,
  • 01:39 notice the colors and fonts change.
  • 01:42 If you click on a theme, Access picks that theme
  • 01:46 and changes its color palette.
  • 01:48 Under Themes, you can also browse for other themes
  • 01:52 and save the current theme.
  • 01:54 Under Colors, you can see the palettes that each theme uses.
  • 01:59 When you click Customize Colors, you can choose other colors.
  • 02:04 The Back Color for the command button is
  • 02:07 Accent 1, Lighter 40%
  • 02:11 The Fore Color for the command button is
  • 02:13 Text 1, Lighter 25%
  • 02:17 By changing Hover Colors and Pressed Colors
  • 02:20 on the Property Sheet,
  • 02:22 you can make the command buttons appear to come alive.
  • 02:27 Another thing you can define for Themes are Fonts.
  • 02:31 Choose Customize Fonts to change
  • 02:33 the Heading Font and the Body Font.
  • 02:36 The Theme fonts will be displayed
  • 02:38 at the top of the list of fonts
  • 02:40 when you choose them from the HOME or FORMAT ribbons.
  • 02:44 My font list may be different than yours.
  • 02:48 Those of you in publications know that
  • 02:50 what is listed here is actually typefaces,
  • 02:54 as the traditional definition of font is typeface and size.
  • 03:00 Typefaces listed depend on
  • 03:02 the fonts you have specified for Windows.
  • 03:06 These can be changed from the Windows Control Panel.
  • 03:10 On the form, every other row is shaded in the detail section.
  • 03:15 The background of the first and odd rows is BackColor.
  • 03:19 The background of the second and even rows
  • 03:21 is Alternate Back Color.
  • 03:24 When you define both forms and reports, Access automatically
  • 03:28 defines Back Color and Alternate Back Color.
  • 03:32 By default, these properties are set to theme colors.
  • 03:36 Theme Colors change when the theme is changed.
  • 03:40 Standard Colors remain whatever you set them to.
  • 03:44 To change the Office Theme,
  • 03:45 which affects how the ribbon will be displayed,
  • 03:48 choose FILE, Account, and drop the choices for Office Theme.
  • 03:53 On reports, group sections are also affected.
  • 03:57 Here, Charlie Carson is shaded and Dave Decker is not.
  • 04:02 Since there is a page break before each customer,
  • 04:05 change the Alternate Back Color to No Color
  • 04:09 for the YearWork Header section, the Customer Header section,
  • 04:13 the Customer Footer section, and the YearWork Footer section.
  • 04:18 As you page through the report in Print Preview,
  • 04:21 the only shading is now on every other detail row.
  • 04:26 In Report View, however, there are no page breaks.
  • 04:30 Therefore, show information in these section headers bigger
  • 04:34 so it is more apparent when they change.
  • 04:38 In the design view, select YearWork and Customer.
  • 04:43 Press Ctrl-Shift-> (greater-than sign) 4 times.
  • 04:48 This will grow the font.
  • 04:50 Then double-click a resizing handle on the selection
  • 04:53 so the control grows to accomodate the new sizes.
  • 04:58 There, that looks much better.
  • 05:01 In the next lesson, we will learn how to create Running Sums
  • 05:04 and Hide Duplicates such as
  • 05:06 when a service name is repeated.

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