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Programmer Tips About Sizing Access Objects

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The material below originally appeared in Alison Balter's book Mastering Microsoft Office Access 2007 Development and is reprinted here with the author's permission. There may be references to "Figures" or "Chapters" that are not reprintable and are not used on this page.

Microsoft Access Power Sizing Techniques

Just as there are several ways to move objects, you have several options for sizing objects. When you select an object, you can use each handle, except for the handle in the upperleft corner of the object, to size the object. The handles at the top and bottom of the object allow you to change the object's height, and the handles at the left and right of the object let you change the object's width. You can use the handles in the upper-right, lower-right, and lower-left corners of the object to change the width and height of the object simultaneously. To size an object, place your mouse pointer over a sizing handle, click, and drag. You can select several objects and size them all at once. Each of the selected objects increases or decreases in size by the same amount; their relative sizes stay intact.

Sizing Multiple Microsoft Access Objects

Access offers several powerful methods of sizing multiple objects, found on the Arrange tab:

• To Fit: Sizes the selected objects to fit the text within them


• To Grid: Sizes the selected objects to the nearest gridlines


• To Tallest: Sizes the selected objects to the height of the tallest object in the selection


• To Shortest: Sizes the selected objects to the height of the shortest object in the selection


• To Widest: Sizes the selected objects to the width of the widest object in the selection


• To Narrowest: Sizes the selected objects to the width of the narrowest object in the selection

Working With The To Fit Option

Probably the most confusing of the options is To Fit. This option is somewhat deceiving because it doesn't perfectly size text boxes to the text within them. In today's world of proportional fonts, you can't perfectly size a text box to the largest possible entry it contains. Generally, however, you can visually size text boxes to a sensible height and width. Use the field's Size property to limit what's typed in the text box. If the entry is too large to fit in the allocated space, the user can scroll to view the additional text. As the following Tip indicates, the To Fit option is much more appropriate for labels than it is for text boxes.

Controlling Microsoft Access Object Spacing

Access gives you excellent tools for spacing the objects on your form an equal distance from one another. Notice in Figure 5.14 that the ClientID, CompanyName, ContactFirstName, and ContactLastName text boxes aren't equally spaced vertically from one another. To make the vertical distance between selected objects equal, choose the Make Vertical Spacing Equal tool in the Position group of the Arrange tab. In Figure 5.15, you can see the result of using this command on the selected objects in Figure 5.14.

You can make the horizontal distance between objects equal by using the Make Horizontal Spacing Equal tool in the Position group of the Arrange tab. Other related commands that are useful are Increase Vertical Spacing, Increase Horizontal Spacing, Decrease Vertical Spacing, and Decrease Horizontal Spacing, all available in the Position group on the Arrange tab. These commands maintain the relationship between objects while proportionally increasing or decreasing the distance between them.

 

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Author Attribution

The preceding information originally appeared in Alison Balter's book Mastering Microsoft Office Access 2007 Development and is reprinted here with the author's permission.

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