ACC2000: How to Shade Every Other Detail Line on Reports

This article shows you how to shade every other detail line on a Microsoft Access report.

NOTE: This article explains a technique demonstrated in the sample file, RptSmp00.mdb. For information about how to obtain this sample file, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: Microsoft provides programming examples for illustration only, without warranty either expressed or implied. This includes, but is not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. This article assumes that you are familiar with the programming language that is being demonstrated and with the tools that are used to create and to debug procedures. Microsoft support engineers can help explain the functionality of a particular procedure, but they will not modify these examples to provide added functionality or construct procedures to meet your specific requirements.

The following example uses an event procedure to alternate the background color between white and yellow. On black and white printers, yellow typically appears as light gray.

CAUTION: If you follow the steps in this example, you modify the sample database Northwind.mdb. You may want to back up the Northwind.mdb file and follow these steps on a copy of the database.

1. Open the sample database Northwind.mdb, and then open the Alphabetical List Of Products report in Design view.
2. Add a new text box control to the detail section of the report and set the following properties:

      Name: LineNum
      ControlSource: =-1
      RunningSum: Over All
      Visible: No
   						

   Note the equal sign in the ControlSource property setting.
3. Set the OnPrint property of the detail section to the following event procedure:

   Const WHITE = 16777215
   Const YELLOW = 65535
   
   If (Me![LineNum] Mod 2) = 0 Then
      Me![ProductName].BackColor = YELLOW
      Me![CategoryName].BackColor = YELLOW
      Me![QuantityPerUnit].BackColor = YELLOW
      Me![UnitsInStock].BackColor = YELLOW
   Else
      Me![ProductName].BackColor = WHITE
      Me![CategoryName].BackColor = WHITE
      Me![QuantityPerUnit].BackColor = WHITE
      Me![UnitsInStock].BackColor = WHITE
   End If
   					

4. On the Debug menu, click Compile Northwind to compile the event procedure code.
5. Close the report module.
6. Open the report in Design View, open the properties sheet for each control in the detail section, and verify that the BackStyle property is set to Normal.
7. Preview or print the report by clicking Print Preview or Print on the File menu. Note that every other detail line on the report is shaded to the extent that the line is covered with a text box.

For more information about BackColor or BackStyle, click Microsoft Access Help on the Help menu, type BackColor, BackStyle, or Windows color scheme in the Office Assistant or the Answer Wizard, and then click Search to view the topic.