Ok, I need some Access help here…using Office 97, and a co-worker is trying to figure out how to tie a color with a specific record in a table or datasheet. Not with a form field, but in a sub-form displayed as a datasheet. I personally don’t think this is possible, and neither does he, unfortunaly, the commanding officer wants it that way, so I thought I’d ask the teeming millions for some help. Any suggestions?..and while I’m at it, any helpful links to Access sites?
Thanks in Advance
Kris
I’m not sure I understand what you’re asking. Could you rephrase it?
also try here.
Sorry about that, let me try again.
He has a form that allows users to search for specific records, and once a value is selected, it displays a sub-form below, in datasheet view. A datasheet view basically displays the data just as it appears in a table. What they want to be able to do, is color co-ordinate the record sets. So that say if they search for records after teh letter “J” for example, everyone in the admin dept. shows up in green letters, and the IT dept is in blue letters…etc. While I can do this in a form, I don’t know if it’s possible to change the color of individual records in a datasheet, or in a table.
I see what you’re trying to do, and I don’t think it can be done. However, here’s an alternative:
Add a new table with two fields: departments (Admin, IS, etc.) and ole objects. Now use paint or such to make colored bullets and drop the bullets into this new field.
Now rebuild your subtable to use continuous form instead of datasheet.
Link it all together, and you can have colored bullets next to each line indicating department (or whatever other field you want)
You may be able to use continuous form and modify each field on the fly to change the font color/size/bold/whatever, but I played with it a bit and couldn’t make it happen. I suspect it’s possible, though.
Really? I don’t know, not being an Access person, but it seems unlikely that it would be out-and-out impossible. Let’s see…
In FileMaker Pro, you would do it with a handful of globals of type “container” + a nest of calculation fields, of type “container”, the latter of which you would place behind the data fields, which would be set to transparent. e.g. –
FieldBkgrd=Case(Dept=“Admin”, g.BkgrdGreen, Dept=“IT”, g.BkgrdBlue, Dept=“Etc”, g.OtherColor)
Most database programs – Access included? – do not have calculation fields in the FmPro sense, but you could do as a verb what FmPro does as a noun, i.e., the Access equivalent of a script that goes Set Field[FieldBkgrd, Case(Dept=“Admin”, g.BkgrdGreen, Dept=“IT”, g.BkgrdBlue, Dept=“Etc”, g.OtherColor)].
Or, if Access supports formatting commands in scripts (FmPro doesn’t; that’s why one needs calc fields so often), you could set the appearance on the form to a formatting style that colors the field if the value is a certain parameter.
Or…you could export all your data to a series of text files and import them into FileMaker 
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