Access Cookbook

Change the Default Settings for New DAPs

Problem

You don’t like the default colors for the background of the caption and footer section, or for the alternate row in a tabular page. You also wish you didn’t have to change the ConnectionFile property for every page you create to point to the same .udl file.

Solution

Access’s Tools → Options dialog now includes a Pages page where you can set defaults for any new pages you create. Changing the defaults will have no effect on existing pages.

To see how the color options affect the look of your new pages, follow these steps:

1. Create a new DAP. Add a table to the page and request a Tabular layout.

2. Switch to page view. Unless your defaults have already been changed, you’ll see a caption with a steelblue background, and every other row will have a whitesmoke background.

3. Close the page.

4. Select Tools → Options from the main Access menu. Click the Pages tab. You’ll see the dialog shown in Figure 13-21.

   

   Figure 13-21. The default Pages options

5. Change the alternate row color to thistle.

6. Edit the Caption Section Style text box to use plum instead of whitesmoke as the background color. The dialog will now look like Figure 13-22.

   

   Figure 13-22. The Pages options after editing

7. Click the OK button to accept the changes and close the dialog.

8. Create a new page. ...