PaintPalette Property

Applies To Form, Report.

Description

You can use the PaintPalette property to specify a palette to be used by a form or report.

Setting

You can set the PaintPalette property by using a macro or Visual Basic. The property setting must be a String data type containing the palette information.

You can set the PaintPalette property by assigning the value of the ObjectPalette property to the PaintPalette property in a macro or Visual Basic, by setting the PaletteSource property (in which case Microsoft Access automatically sets the PaintPalette property to this PaletteSource), or by setting the PaintPalette property of one form or report to the PaintPalette property of another form or report.

For a form, you can set the PaintPalette property in form Design view and Form view.

For a report, you can set the PaintPalette property in report Design view only.

Remarks

When you set the PaintPalette property, Microsoft Access makes a copy of the palette that you specify and saves it with the form or report. The palette is then available if you modify that form or report.

Changes to the palette you specified when you set the PaintPalette property don't affect the copy of the palette stored with the form or report. If you want to update the copy of the palette stored with the form or report, you must rerun the code or macro that sets the PaintPalette property or reset the PaletteSource property when the form or report is open.

When you set the PaintPalette property for a form or report, Microsoft Access automatically updates its PaletteSource property. Conversely, when you set the PaletteSource property for a form or report, the PaintPalette property is also updated. For example, when you specify a custom palette with the PaintPalette property, the PaletteSource property setting is changed to (Custom). The PaintPalette property (which is available only in a macro or Visual Basic) is used to set the palette for the form or report. The PaletteSource property gives you a way to set the palette for the form or report in the property sheet by using an existing graphics file.

Note Windows can have only one color palette active at a time. Microsoft Access allows you to have multiple graphics on a form, each using a different color palette. The PaintPalette and PaletteSource properties let you specify which color palette a form should use when displaying graphics.

You can use the ObjectPalette property to make the palette of an application associated with an OLE object, bitmap, or other graphic contained in a control on a form or report available to the PaintPalette property. For example, to make the palette used in Microsoft Graph available when you're designing a form in Microsoft Access, you set the form's PaintPalette property to the ObjectPalette value of an existing chart control.

See Also ObjectPalette property, PaletteSource property, Picture property.

Example

The following example sets the PaintPalette property of the Seascape form to the ObjectPalette property of the Ocean control on the DisplayPictures form. (Ocean can be a bound object frame, command button, chart, toggle button, or unbound object frame.)

Forms!Seascape.PaintPalette = Forms!DisplayPictures!Ocean.ObjectPalette

The ObjectPalette and PaintPalette properties are useful for programmatically altering the color palette in use by an open form at run time. A common use of these properties is to set the current form's PaintPalette property to the palette of a graphic displayed in a control that has the focus.

For example, you can have a form with an ocean picture, showing many shades of blue, and a sunset picture, showing many shades of red. Since Windows only allows one color palette active at a time, one picture will look much better than the other. The following example uses a control's Enter event for setting the form's PaintPalette property to the control's ObjectPalette property so the graphic that has the focus will have an optimal appearance.

Sub OceanPicture_Enter()
    Me.PaintPalette = Me!OceanPicture.ObjectPalette
End Sub

Sub SunsetPicture_Enter()
    Me.PaintPalette = Me!SunsetPicture.ObjectPalette
End Sub