Changing font colors in Continous Form for one record

[John Spencer MVP]

What version of Access are you using? This worked for me in Access 2003,
Access 2000 and Access 97.

If you want currency then you might need to modify the format a bit to the
following. However, a better solution is to use conditional formatting as
described in my earlier post. Conditional formatting was not available until
Access 2000.

$#,###.00[Black];-$#,###.00[Red];0[White];

John Spencer
Access MVP 2002-2005, 2007-2009
The Hilltop Institute
University of Maryland Baltimore County

OK...I am getting there. I had the format set to Currency, but if I type
into the format property:

#.00[Red];-#.00[Black];#[White];#[Green]

The numbers do not change to the colors indicated. In fact the numbers show
up with the word [Red] attached to them and so on. The one good thing is
that the 0.00 fields show up as empty fields although the 0.00 is still there
(at least I think so since a 0 appears when you click in the field).

If you have a continuous form and want to change the format of one control
based on the value in the field bound to the control you open the form in
design view.

--Right Click on the control and show properties
--Click on the Format tab of the properties
--Enter the specified format in the Format property
FORMAT controls how the data appears when the control does NOT have the focus.
When the control DOES have the focus the Input Mask controls the display of
the value (if you have an input mask).

Try it. It should work on a continuous form. And conditional formatting
should also work. If it doesn't then you are doing something we don't understand.

John Spencer
Access MVP 2002-2005, 2007-2009
The Hilltop Institute
University of Maryland Baltimore County

I am sorry but I do not know where this information is to be put into.
Besides, with a continuous form, whatever I put in reacts with the hole
column of items and not just the one field within the one record within the
continuous form.

:

If the field is numeric and you don't mind being limited to a few colors you
can set the format of the control to something like the following

#.00[Red];-#.00[Black];#[White];#[Green]

That will show Red for positive numbers, black for negative numbers, white for
zero, and green for nulls. Other colors available are Yellow, Cyan, and Blue.
There might me one or two more, but at this point I really don't recall what
they might be.

John Spencer
Access MVP 2002-2005, 2007-2009
The Hilltop Institute
University of Maryland Baltimore County

DianaE wrote:
I have a continuous form that has a lot of 0.00 fields and the women I work
with say it makes them dizzy. I know how to make the font match the
background by changing the font color but when they put a number in the field
I want the font to change to another color so that it shows up on the screen.
When I do this the whole column on the continous form changes the font to
show up. I just want the one field in the one record to change. Can someone
help me please. PSS...I need this to happen in VB.

 

[DianaE]

Jim, John, and Jack

I must thank you all for your help. I am hoping one of these ways will be
the ultimate answer. I do have it working but am not very confident. I have
just changed from Access 2003 to Access 2007 and the difference is just
amazing. Now the learning curve begins again and I am not sure I am ready
for it but will make a good go of everything that comes my way. Again, thank
you all for your help and understanding in getting this through my brain. I
do really appreciate it.

I don't think conditional formatting alone will work for what you want, at
least from the way it works as I understand it. There are three options in
the Condition 1 dropdown when you select Format, Conditional Formatting. The
first two, 'Field Value Is' and 'Expression Is', will affect all rows in the
continuous form (at least when I've used it it works this way). The third
option, 'Field Has Focus', will allow you to apply the format only to the
selected row and field, but it doesn't allow other options along with it. So
if you use that option, the format will be applied to that row only, but it's
applied no matter what the value is. I don't think there's a simple way to
have only the selected row conditionally formatted for certain values.

If there is a way to do conditional formatting thru VBA code, then you could
use the forms On Current event to do it. You could do something like this

Select Case myValue
case 1
turn conditional formatting on, set formatting values for when = 1
case 2
turn conditional formatting on, set formatting values for when = 2...

case else
turn conditional formatting off
End Select

It looks like you can turn it on/off in VBA after doing a little searching.
Here's a link that has an example...

http://blogs.msdn.com/frice/archive/2004/06/08/151178.aspx

OK...I am getting there. I had the format set to Currency, but if I type
into the format property:

#.00[Red];-#.00[Black];#[White];#[Green]

The numbers do not change to the colors indicated. In fact the numbers show
up with the word [Red] attached to them and so on. The one good thing is
that the 0.00 fields show up as empty fields although the 0.00 is still there
(at least I think so since a 0 appears when you click in the field).

If you have a continuous form and want to change the format of one control
based on the value in the field bound to the control you open the form in

[quoted text clipped - 42 lines]

show up. I just want the one field in the one record to change. Can someone
help me please. PSS...I need this to happen in VB.

 

[DianaE]

Jim, John, and Jack

I must thank you all for your help. I am hoping one of these ways will be
the ultimate answer. I do have it working but am not very confident. I have
just changed from Access 2003 to Access 2007 and the difference is just
amazing. Now the learning curve begins again and I am not sure I am ready
for it but will make a good go of everything that comes my way. Again, thank
you all for your help and understanding in getting this through my brain. I
do really appreciate it.

I don't think conditional formatting alone will work for what you want, at
least from the way it works as I understand it. There are three options in
the Condition 1 dropdown when you select Format, Conditional Formatting. The
first two, 'Field Value Is' and 'Expression Is', will affect all rows in the
continuous form (at least when I've used it it works this way). The third
option, 'Field Has Focus', will allow you to apply the format only to the
selected row and field, but it doesn't allow other options along with it. So
if you use that option, the format will be applied to that row only, but it's
applied no matter what the value is. I don't think there's a simple way to
have only the selected row conditionally formatted for certain values.

If there is a way to do conditional formatting thru VBA code, then you could
use the forms On Current event to do it. You could do something like this

Select Case myValue
case 1
turn conditional formatting on, set formatting values for when = 1
case 2
turn conditional formatting on, set formatting values for when = 2...

case else
turn conditional formatting off
End Select

It looks like you can turn it on/off in VBA after doing a little searching.
Here's a link that has an example...

http://blogs.msdn.com/frice/archive/2004/06/08/151178.aspx

OK...I am getting there. I had the format set to Currency, but if I type
into the format property:

#.00[Red];-#.00[Black];#[White];#[Green]

The numbers do not change to the colors indicated. In fact the numbers show
up with the word [Red] attached to them and so on. The one good thing is
that the 0.00 fields show up as empty fields although the 0.00 is still there
(at least I think so since a 0 appears when you click in the field).

If you have a continuous form and want to change the format of one control
based on the value in the field bound to the control you open the form in

[quoted text clipped - 42 lines]

show up. I just want the one field in the one record to change. Can someone
help me please. PSS...I need this to happen in VB.