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  1. #1
    twgonder is offline Expert
    Windows 10 Access 2016
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    How does Report Wizard apply Themes to specific properties?


    This question has a background thread here:
    Crunch down detail print to something approximating 8lpi (accessforums.net)

    Once again, Google wasn't much help with all this. All Microsoft offers is an overview of how great Themes are.

    While poking around deeper into the design view for reports, I found that the Report Wizard creates Report Header Back Color Text 2, Lighter 80% using the default install settings. Further, it would appear that this color includes some blue. I don’t want my standard reports to have color. I don’t want my reports using color ink of a client’s printer if they aren’t careful with the print options.

    Upon further investigation, I see that Access uses those Themes, colors and font thingies, nothing I’ve paid a lot of attention to, since for about 20 years, all Microsoft seems to have done is spend 80% of their development time moving things around, renaming them and adding useless features. But if users want to use this stuff, okay, I’ll go with it.

    So, I started with the Facet theme, changed to Gray scale colors and changed the Font to a custom one using Ariel and Courier new. Oddly, the font only seems to address a heading and body font, while my default Word documents are a convoluted mess of sizes and fonts even using the Office defaults for even something as simple as headings.

    I created a new report using the wizard after changing the theme and looked at two objects and their properties.
    Report Header
    Back Color = Text 2, Lighter 80%
    Label in Report Header

    Back Color = Background 1
    Fore Color = Text1, Lighter 40%

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    This makes no sense to me. Why have two different colors, for background, for a report header and two objects that sits in it?
    Further, in the list box for the Back Color for the Report Header, Text 2, Lighter 80% isn’t even an option. So, if we change it, how do we get back to where we were? Where did it come from, if it’s not part of the standard theme options? Crazy!

    I want to avoid a jumbled mess of reports, with all kinds of conflicting settings. And so far, I’ve only reviewed two objects in the Report Header section! If you go deeper into the colors, there is a hex code, that’s nice, but we want to set things at a higher level just once, and not in the property details of dozens of objects in dozens of reports.

    How do we set this higher level?
    How do we adjust what the Report Wizard uses?

  2. #2
    Minty is online now VIP
    Windows 10 Office 365
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    The wizard uses the themes.
    The best route is to set up a empty report with all the settings you want in each section. Save this as a blank "Master Report" then copy it and use it as the template for all your other reports.
    The same goes for forms. You can use a template database, but I've never got my head around it.
    I just have a basic one with common code and a couple of "always" used forms.

    If you pick colours from the Standard section of the colour picker (See below) they never change if someone changes a theme, otherwise it reapplies all the theme settings all over the shop.
    Click image for larger version. 

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    DLookup Syntax and others http://access.mvps.org/access/general/gen0018.htm
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  3. #3
    twgonder is offline Expert
    Windows 10 Access 2016
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    I think I figured it out. Forget about the drop down list on the left, I still don't know what that is for. I just figured that's what you're supposed to use, seeing as it shows first in the controls.
    The trick is to set the colors in the Themes Colors (Ribbon Bar) and then use the "..." in the color property, hover over each to see it's name.
    I had to pick some crazy colors to figure out how all this worked.

    Like in Word, where I created my own templates, never figuring out the intrinsic ones, I'll do the same here.
    Now the fun to figure out how to add some of the stuff the Wizard does, like the alternating shading on detail rows, etc.

    What kind of code do you add to all your reports?

    Thanks for your patience.

Please reply to this thread with any new information or opinions.

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