Jan's Access Forms & Reports: Printable Form

It is rather confusing how headers and footers print with a form. It depends on which ones they are! You might expect to see the page header and footer within the top and bottom margins, like they are in Word and Excel. Not so!

In the example below, the page header contains the current date, at the right. The page footer contains the page number and the total number of pages, like "Page 3 of 5". The form header contains the title of the form, "Day Camp Campers & Staff". The form footer contains the year (just so there would be something there for this example).

The form footer prints on the last page only, below the last record, but not necessarily at the bottom of the page.

The page header will print on each page above the record(s). On the first page it is below the form header.

Unexpectedly, you cannot configure a page header or footer for a printed form from the Page Setup Dialog. You must be in the Form Design View. From the View menu, you can show a Page Header/Footer. Then you can add controls to it, just like for the Details section.

Step-by-Step: Printable Form

What you will learn:

to use Print Preview and Page Setup
to use the Properties dialog
to find Help about properties

Start with: , resource files, worldtravel.mdb from the previous lesson

You are going to create a form just for printing. We will take the easy way and make it very similar to the onscreen version.

Print Preview and Page Setup

Open the form Clients.
Click on the Print Preview button .

The preview looks pretty good on page 1. But... the controls in the third column are cutoff just a little bit, which creates a weird looking second page.

Pages 1 and 2 of 16 in Print Preview
On the toolbar, click the Setup button.
The Page Setup dialog appears.
Change the left and right margins to 0.75".
Click on Close, to close the dialog.
You are back in Print Preview. This is better! Now there are only 8 pages and there are none of those pages with just little bits of a form.
Navigate through each page in the print preview.
The Form Header shows up only on the first page.
Close Print Preview.
Save the form as Clients-print.

Managing Backgrounds

The backgrounds are going to take a lot of ink and a lot of time to print. This is the kind of situation that make it useful to create a form especially for printing.

A form that is suitable for printing does not have a background picture. None of the sections should have a background color. The controls should not have a colored background either. The controls should not have a special effect.

All of these features can be managed from the Properties dialog.

Switch to Form Design View.
If necessary, open the the Properties dialog.
The dialog shows the properties for whatever is selected. In this case it is probably the ClientID control because you were changing its properties earlier in this lesson.
Open the drop list at the top of the dialog.
It lists every control and every section of the form.
Scroll the list and see just how many choices there are.
Click on Form in the list.
The Properties dialog now shows the properties available for the Form as a whole.
Scroll the list and see what you can change about the form.
The Picture property shows (bitmap). This is a reference to the image that the AutoFormat placed as the form's background. Note the other Picture properties.
Delete the text (bitmap) for the Picture property.
You may or may not get a message that asks if you really want to remove the picture. If you do, click on Yes.

The image background vanishes. There was apparently a background color also. Back to the Properties dialog! The background color must be changed for each section.
Click on the selection bar for the Form Header section.

The Properties dialog changes to show properties for this section.
Scroll the properties to find the property Back Color.
The value -214783633 is for the gray background.
Click in the value for Back Color.
The 3 dots button appears, which tells you that there is a dialog available.
Click the 3 dots button .
The color dialog appears.
Click on the White rectangle and then on OK.
The Color dialog closes, but nothing else changes yet.

You can use colors that are not in the grid by clicking the Define Custom Colors button.
Click on another property in the list.
Only after leaving the property does Access accept your change.
The background color of the section changes to white. The Properties dialog shows a new number for Back Color, 16777215.
Where do they get these weird numbers??
Repeat for the Detail section and the Form Footer section.
Switch to Print Preview.
Hmmm. This will print a lot faster and will use a lot less ink, but those gray boxes will slow things down, too.
Switch back to Form Design View.
Select all of the controls.
The Properties dialog changes to "Multiple Selection".

The properties will be blank except where all controls have the same value for the property.
Help: Open Help articles about Back Color, Special Effect, and Border Style and read them.
Change the Back Color property to White.
Change the Special Effect property to Flat.
Change the Border Style to Transparent.
Whoops. Look at the phone number controls. They are hidden! Changing the Back Color for the rectangle made the rectangle into a solid box, hiding all the controls under it!
Click on an empty area of the form to deselect the controls.
Click on the rectangle to select it.
From the menu select Format | Send to Back .
The rectangle moves underneath the phone numbers.
In the Properties dialog for the rectangle, change the border style to Solid.
All is well again.

The color of the rectangle was chosen originally to match the shadow color. There aren't any shadows in this revised form so this color looks a bit out of place.
Change the Border Color property to match the labels, the dark blue that is 16777215.
Switch to Print Preview.
Much better for printing!
Save the form. (Clients-print)

Can Grow Property

In a printed form you want to be SURE that all of the data actually prints. If the control is not large enough, your data is just cut off UNLESS you take advantage of the Can Grow property.

Thinking: Which controls on this form cut data off now? Which are most likely to cutoff the data in the future?
Answer: The memo type controls HealthIssues and Notes, plus Address, Title (which is already two characters too short in record #2), and Email Address.

Switch to Form Design View.
Hold the SHIFT key down and click on the controls Address, Title, HealthIssues, Notes, and EmailAddress to select them.
The Properties dialog changes to Multiple Selection.
Click on the Format tab and then in the box for Can Grow.
Change the value to Yes.
Click out to apply your changes.
Switch to Form View and look at the second record.
The control is not quite wide enough for the full title to show.
Switch to Print Preview and look at the second record.
The control grew to hold all of the data. Super!

Zoom: You can enlarge the view with the Zoom button or the Zoom drop list.
While in Print Preview, view all of the pages.
Do all pages look right?
When you allow controls to grow as needed, the form may have to enlarge to hold the new sizes. That can be an unpleasant surprise at times!
Save the form. (Clients-print)
Print the first page and the last page.

Forms & Reports:
Printable Form

Common issues with printing forms:

Page Header/Footer vs. Form Header/Footer in Printing