How do precisely place and align controls on Access forms (Align does not do this)?

Question

I have a Microsoft Access (Office 365) form. I need the controls to be neatly placed on the form.

For example, in the Access Form Design View below, the "Residential" label and the rectangle around the checkbox both have the same Left and Width. The Left property was set by using the Align - Left option of the Sizing & Ordering group of the Arrange ribbon tab.

• I have looked at the padding and margins for each control. This has no effect on control placement.

• Is there a way to compute the Top and Left placement for a control? I tried Top + Height + 2*BorderHeight with all padding and margins set to 0. This did not improve the situation.

• One of the biggest problems is the absence of support to precisely position controls independently from the labels.

• Is there a third-party tool that can be used to design Access forms? Form layout seems to be time-consuming aspect of Access.

Answer 1

First up, leaving out the WHOPPER of a detail that this looks to be a continues form (multiple items form) is a huge detail.

Furthermore, forms created by the wizard ALSO include what is called the layout control. Now for reports, and continues forms? This is in most cases a fantastic option - you can re-size a control and ALL OTHER controls move + re-size for you. This can save you hours and hours of having to painfuly layout controls on a form.

However, for specialized layout - or layouts that are not "just" one control to the next? Then yes, you want to REMOVE the layout control.

It as noted would have helped the readers here if you showed more of that form.

So, a typical multiple items form will look like this (and that orange border bar, along with the HEADING part of the form ALSO shows that layout control system in action.

So, what I suggest for more specialized layouts? Remove the layout control.

So, WHEN you have a layout control in use, you see this:

So in above, when you click on that detail row - note the orange bar and NOTE VERY careful the "+" sign. (the blue arrow points to it). So click on that + sign.

So click on the + sign - all of the controls in that layout will now show (orange lines around all controls in that layout).

So click on that + sign.

Now in ribbon (arrange tab) select remove layout:

Like this:

At this point, the orange bars will go away.

At this point, you can free form move around the controls any where, and any way you want. JUST keep in mind that of course then if you say re-size or move around a control, the other controls WILL NOT automatic move for you anymore. As noted, for some cases, you really don't' want the layout. This tip/suggest also applies to basic forms - you want again to remove the layout control - and you often do this for regular forms.

As noted, for a report, or a continues forms (multiple items form), then often the layout control is your best friend. But, removing it? Now you on your own - you have to place things just as a you want - no layout helper will be active.