Adjusting form elements in Layout view

The one-click form got us started by placing text boxes for all of our table fields onto the form. We can further refine the organization of the Form elements by using the Layout view. I'm going to open up the Employees form that we started in last movie by double-clicking on it in the navigation pane. We can change our view here to layout by clicking on the View button. Now we're in Layout view. Layout view allows us to rearrange and add elements, but it keeps everything organized on a standardized grid layout. Right now the form is organized into a single column.

We can rearrange this layout by adding additional placeholder rows and columns to our Layout grid. On the Arrange tab of the ribbon go ahead and press the Insert Right button twice to add two additional columns over here on the right side. Now we can drag and drop these form elements into these placeholders in the grid. For instance, I'm going to take this LastName field where it says Tate. I'm going to drag-and-drop it over here to the right of Zachary, the FirstName. I can resize elements by clicking on them and dragging on their edges. Notice that when I do, it resizes everything in that column.

I can resize the height by dragging on the bottom and again it resizes everything in that entire row. The Layout view grid keeps everything organized. Now I can delete labels that we don't need such as this LastName label, by clicking on it and pressing the Delete key. If we want to edit a label, I'll double-click on it. For instance I'll double-click on this First Name one and just change it to read Name and press Enter. Now we can continue to rearrange our form elements into a more logical grouping. I'm going to move Department over here to the right and I'll grab the label for Department and move that as well.

I'm going to move the Status up and the Status label up. If I want to grab multiple pieces at once, I can click on one and then Shift+Click on the other. Let's move HireDate over to the right of Status, here. Our Benefit Information, let's move it over to the right as well. I'll click on BenefitDental and then Shift+Click on this last checkbox. That will grab all six elements at once. We can drag and drop them in to position. Let's go ahead and scroll down. Salary and JobRating we can move those up.

I'll click on Salary, Shift+Click on the 5 and drag those up and drop them into position. Let's get rid of the few rows that we don't need anymore. I'll click on this field and Shift+Click on the fourth one and press Delete and the entire row disappears. Now let's go ahead and give more room to our sub-datasheet here the bottom. I'll click on the sub-datasheet, Shift+Click on the other two fields to the right of it, and I'm going to press this Merge button up here on the ribbon. That will merge those three fields together giving our sub datasheet more room.

Now we can rearrange the fields inside of that. I'm going to drag this ID open a little bit more and give a little more breathing room to our Number and Type. Let's go ahead and scroll up to the top. I can continue refining this a little bit more. I am going to leave this row here blank, but I'll use it as a spacer row. I'll go ahead and click on Taft here, the building row and I'll shrink that down. The same thing with the rows below it. I'll grab each one and make them a little bit narrower. That way we can fit more information on our screen.

If we want to reduce the amount of spacing between our elements, I can select everything by clicking on this box here and then going up to Control Padding and choosing either None or the Narrow option. I'll choose Narrow. You can see that everything collapsed together a little bit more. Now that our form is a little bit more organized, we can view the results of our edits by changing back to Form View, by going to the Home tab and changing our View toggle button here. That will change us into Form View and we can cycle through the records to see how it works with multiple employees.

If you need to make any changes, for instance, I'm noticing that this Department field isn't quite wide enough for my entire departments. I'll press the View button to toggle back and I can make those changes. Once I'm happy with the layout I'll go ahead and press the Save button to save those changes to the form. The Layout view grid makes it very easy to move your fields around quickly while keeping everything perfectly aligned and looking neat and clean.