ok, i need some help thinking thru how to do what i have thought of. I have a continuous form with a text box we'll call txtstatus with a value from 1-4 for each record on the form. i have 4 unbound text boxes beside the txtstatus that i would like to color according to the value of txtstatus. if the value of txtstatus is 2 then the first two would be green. if txtstatus is 4 then all four would be green. my thought is that i will need to loop thru the records on the form and for each record set this value? not sure, i haven't tried looping records much. does anyone have any direction or examples of what i would like to do?