Report Design Background to bright (1 Viewer)

[JimFlood2424]

Is there a way to change the working backgound color so it's not so bright, I can tell where the bars are, everthing is so white. Don't want to change the back groud of the actual report. Only is design mode.

 

[plog]

No. Change it to your preferred working color, work then change it back.

 

[isladogs]

Yes. Reduce the brightness of your display and/or turn on Night Light in Windows settings

 

[Pat Hartman]

Office has several color settings. Most are awful but there are some with darker backgrounds.

 

[isladogs]

Office has several color settings. Most are awful but there are some with darker backgrounds.

The various Office 'themes' affect the interface background but do not alter the background colour of the report.
Hence my suggestion

 

[Pat Hartman]

Then it is the Office settings that provide the overall color changes. For a while, while Access was in its pale gray period, I was using one of the dark background options. It was ugly but at least I could read the text in the fonts. I think MS doesn't bother using its own usability guidelines when coming up with important pallets that can't be changed easily.

Nope, I was right, the setting is within Access.

Go to the Account page:

 

[Pat Hartman]

For your form, use themes. You can then control colors by changing the theme or by changing a particular color of a theme.

The option named "colorful" is a nice medium. The background is is a soft gray.

 

[isladogs]

Pat
The OP wants to change the background colour of reports in design view only. Changing the Access theme to Colorful or any other Access theme will have absolutely no effect on that. He/she could manually change the background colour in design view and change it back in other views as @plog suggested but that would be a PITA.

 

[Pat Hartman]

Then toggling the theme seems like the only current solution.

 

[isladogs]

No. As I keep stating that doesn’t help the OP at all

 

[Pat Hartman]

And why wouldn't toggling the theme work? You can have one theme you use while developing that has a darker background and then switch back to your normal theme when you save. It is a royal PITA but it does get the job done.

Reports should have alternate themes for print and display to solve this problem. I thought in the olden days, we could turn off background color for printing but I can't find any setting that seems to do that.

 

[isladogs]

I'm really not sure how else to explain this.
The application background does of course change with the Office theme.

BUT that isn't what the OP asked for! He/she wants to make the report background less bright in DESIGN view ONLY

Perhaps some screenshots will help. This is the same report in design view with the Black, White and Colorful themes.
The theme affects the interface but the background of each section of the report is unaffected as that is set within the report properties

The OP can of course alter the background colour of each section but that will also affect the appearance when printed.

Access has never had separate settings for print and design, This is the first time in 25 years I've ever heard anyone indirectly ask for such a thing.
Meanwhile, the solution I gave in post #3 does what the OP asked for.
Unfortunately, we're now at post #12 and the OP appears to be AWOL

 

[Pat Hartman]

I guess you missed when I switched from using the Windows theme to the theme concept used in Access forms/reports. Does this help? You can set the background of the report to whatever color you want. I made every section a different color to show how you can control the background. You can then swap the theme for a standard one to go back to background 1 being no color or white because you probably don't want to print something that looks like this. You may not even want it to display this way for the user.

It will be annoying but at least you can see what you need to see to make the design work. The simplest variation is to just leave the background as background1 but change the value of background 1 for your "design" theme so that it is some color that highlights your controls best. I like the top color best. It is not as bright as white but there is still a lot of contrast between the text and outlines and the background.

 

[isladogs]

Individual forms and reports do not have a theme property. Themes apply to the database as whole and changes are global (by design)
That just appears to be a more detailed account of what @plog described in post #2.
In my opinion doing all that is somewhat OTT when a much simpler solution exists based on screen brightness or night light setting

 

[Pat Hartman]

Individual forms and reports do not have a theme property.

I know that.
I don't disagree that changing the brightness could be a better solution BUT that affects EVERY app shown on the monitor whereas toggling the theme for the database affects only that database.

 

[isladogs]

I know that.
I don't disagree that changing the brightness could be a better solution BUT that affects EVERY app shown on the monitor whereas toggling the theme for the database affects only that database.

I also know that but its just a one button click to enable / disable the Night Light setting

 

[Pat Hartman]

Which means that there are multiple 1-click options

 

[isladogs]

I must be missing something in your explanation. Please describe how all that can be done in one click

 

[Pat Hartman]

OK, two clicks because the theme setting is a drop down. I'm also pretty sure that most people don't have the settings dialog open to what you are showing either. This is a pretty silly discussion.

 

[isladogs]

Yes I've thought that for the last 10 posts or so.