Adjust the Grid Size

This is more of a matter of preference, yet it is good to have even horizontal and vertical grid resolution. 8x8 is a good size to use because the rulers along the top and left side of the Design view window are divided in 1/8” portions. However, if you have an application requiring a grid 7x33, Access lets you pick whatever resolution works for you. You can also change the resolution at any time without touching the controls already in place.

Adjust the Canvas Size

Maximizing the report Design view window will give you the best working experience when layout is concerned.

You can make any report section, such as a header or footer, as big as you like. Simply move your mouse to the section header, then click and drag up or down to increase or decrease the size. Move your mouse to the edge of the canvas to drag left or right, using the horizontal ruler as a guide.

Snap to Grid

Snap to Grid is a feature already built into Access’ Design view. It automatically aligns the upper-left corner of any control to the size of the grid.

Once a control is in place, click the large black box in the upper left-hand corner of the control to move the control itself, or any of the smaller boxes on the other sides and corners to adjust the height and/or width of a control.

Lastly, Snap to Grid makes it very easy to align controls using the arrow keys on your keyboard. Each keystroke in any direction moves the control one unit of measurement defined by your grid size.

Group Selection and Moving

At any point, you can select a number of controls and move them as a whole unit. Click in an empty space of the canvas to deselect any objects that might be selected. Click and drag a box around the objects, and then click and drag the objects that have been selected as a group. This technique is useful if you have already constructed some controls based on one grid resolution and then change to another grid resolution. Instead of moving each control again, select all of them at once and move the group as a unit.

Try, Try Again!

If you make a formatting error that causes a large disruption in the layout of your controls, don’t panic! You can undo the action and restore the controls to their previous state.

You can use the Undo arrow or press Ctrl + Z to undo a command. Access saves the last 20 commands, so if you made a mistake several clicks ago, you should be able to back out of your problem and try again.

Save Frequently

Often when designing things, we get a bit too wrapped up in what we were doing and forget to save our changes. If the power should go out or if your computer becomes unresponsive, you will lose any changes since the last save or AutoSave.

Remember that you can either backup the database before you perform a lot of operations or save a copy of a particular database object before your start working. Should you get in over your head, you can always pull out the backup and try again.