Adding borders, fill, and baselines to fields

Adding borders, fill, and baselines to fields

To enhance the appearance and usability of your layout, you can add or customize:

•

borders around fields

•

the background color and pattern, or fill, of fields

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the dotted guidelines, or text baselines, that appears in a field at the base of the text to help you align it with other objects

To add borders, fill, and baselines to fields:

1.

In Layout mode, select one or more fields.

For more information, see Selecting objects. You can also specify attributes for fields you add later by starting with no fields selected.

2.

Click Inspector in the layout bar, then click Appearance.

3.

In the Object area, select the formats you want to use.

To

Do this

Add a fill color, pattern, or both to fields

For Fill, choose a color, pattern, or both from the pop-up palettes.

Choose the effect with which FileMaker Pro draws an object (except lines)

From the list of object effects, choose No effect, Embossed, Engraved, or Drop Shadow. For more information about object effects, see About object effects.

Add borders to fields and set their attributes

For Line, choose a color, pattern, and line width from the pop-up palettes. Choose All borders, or choose any combination of Left border, Top border, Right border, or Bottom border.

To also add borders between repeating fields, choose Add borders between repetitions in repeating fields.

Add text baselines and set their attributes

Select Text baselines, then choose a color, pattern, and line width from the pop-up palettes.

If the current layout is set to show Field Boundaries in Layout mode, you may not be able to see some of the border effects that you have applied. To see the effects, do one of the following:

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Hide the Field Boundaries while in Layout mode: View menu > Show > Field Boundaries to hide them.

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Switch to Browse mode: Choose Browse from the Mode pop-up menu at the bottom of the document window.

Notes

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The settings you choose in the Object area of the Inspector affect the appearance of the field in all modes. If you just want to see field boundaries in Layout mode to, for example, align fields, choose View menu > Show > Field Boundaries instead of creating borders. For more information, see Showing text, field, or button boundaries.

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To quickly change a field’s fill and border formats, use the Line and Fill palettes in the formatting bar. (You must have already specified borders in the Object area of the Inspector.) Changes made in the formatting bar to the Line and Fill palettes replace settings in the Inspector, and vice versa. For more information, see Setting auto-resize options for layout objects.

To	Do this
Add a fill color, pattern, or both to fields	For Fill, choose a color, pattern, or both from the pop-up palettes.
Choose the effect with which FileMaker Pro draws an object (except lines)	From the list of object effects, choose No effect, Embossed, Engraved, or Drop Shadow. For more information about object effects, see About object effects.
Add borders to fields and set their attributes	For Line, choose a color, pattern, and line width from the pop-up palettes. Choose All borders, or choose any combination of Left border, Top border, Right border, or Bottom border. To also add borders between repeating fields, choose Add borders between repetitions in repeating fields.
Add text baselines and set their attributes	Select Text baselines, then choose a color, pattern, and line width from the pop-up palettes.

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