MS Access Form and Report design view needs improvement

[draillant]

The MS Access Form and Report design view is very cumbersome. It feels like
it's had the same sort of basic "snap to grid" functionality for the past 10
years. I'm working with Access 2003.

I recently started working with Visual Studio 2005 and find the new form
designer to be extremely intuitive. It is now very easy to align labels,
boxes, buttons and the rest so that they look right.

But meanwhile back in Access we're still in the dark ages of grids and
pixels, and tweaking the Top and Left properties of controls to get them to
sit right. Also, notably, when you think you've got a report set up right,
you switch over to Print Preview and the result is nothing like what you
tried to design.

Also, we've been able to "dock" windows like the Properties window to the
side of the screen so they're always visible for ages in many programs. But
in Access, we're still stuck digging through stack of windows and doing
horrible things like "Tile Horizontal" to be able to see everything at once.

I hope that some of the great new features of the VS2005 IDE will be
introduced into Access one day.

----------------
This post is a suggestion for Microsoft, and Microsoft responds to the
suggestions with the most votes. To vote for this suggestion, click the "I
Agree" button in the message pane. If you do not see the button, follow this
link to open the suggestion in the Microsoft Web-based Newsreader and then
click "I Agree" in the message pane.

http://www.microsoft.com/office/com...df67ba5a142d&dg=microsoft.public.access.forms

 

[Douglas J Steele]

The ability to align controls exists in Access. Select a number of controls,
and look under the Format menu. There are options for alignment and to
control horizontal and vertical spacing.

--
Doug Steele, Microsoft Access MVP

(no e-mails, please!)

The MS Access Form and Report design view is very cumbersome. It feels like
it's had the same sort of basic "snap to grid" functionality for the past 10
years. I'm working with Access 2003.

I recently started working with Visual Studio 2005 and find the new form
designer to be extremely intuitive. It is now very easy to align labels,
boxes, buttons and the rest so that they look right.

But meanwhile back in Access we're still in the dark ages of grids and
pixels, and tweaking the Top and Left properties of controls to get them to
sit right. Also, notably, when you think you've got a report set up right,
you switch over to Print Preview and the result is nothing like what you
tried to design.

Also, we've been able to "dock" windows like the Properties window to the
side of the screen so they're always visible for ages in many programs. But
in Access, we're still stuck digging through stack of windows and doing
horrible things like "Tile Horizontal" to be able to see everything at once.

I hope that some of the great new features of the VS2005 IDE will be
introduced into Access one day.

----------------
This post is a suggestion for Microsoft, and Microsoft responds to the
suggestions with the most votes. To vote for this suggestion, click the "I
Agree" button in the message pane. If you do not see the button, follow this
link to open the suggestion in the Microsoft Web-based Newsreader and then
click "I Agree" in the message pane.

http://www.microsoft.com/office/com...df67ba5a142d&dg=microsoft.public.access.forms