Using Styles in askSam PART 3

This is our third tip on styles. By now you should have a good working knowledge of styles. If you missed the first two installments we'll give you links to them at the beginning of this tip. This month, we'll look at how to use styles in an entry form. You'll find that styles make formatting an entry form a breeze.

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Review:

So far we have covered the definition of styles and how to use them. If you missed the first two installments you can catch up by going to the April and May Tips Archives on our Web site.

See Styles Part 1

See Styles Part 2

Using Styles in an Entry Form

Using styles in an Entry Form will allow you to easily and consistently add formatting to your entire document. It will also allow you to change the appearance of your entire database at any time by simply changing a style. For this example we will set up an entry form on styles, add a couple of documents and go back and edit the styles to give our database a new look.

The Entry Form Wizard

If you've used the Entry Form Wizard to create an entry form in an askSam database then whether you know it or not you have used styles in an entry form. The Entry Form wizard uses styles to setup the appearance of the askSam Entry From.

I recommend always using the Entry Form Wizard to set up new Entry Forms. There are many advantages to creating entry forms in this way...

Ÿ     Fast - The Entry From Wizard allows you to quickly type fields, set Entry Form properties, define a picklist and more.

Ÿ     Convenient - The Entry Form Wizard takes away the tedious task of defining styles for each field and field data.

Ÿ     Flexible - Once the Entry Form Wizard creates a form you can easily go back and manually reorder the fields, add new fields, move fields on the same line and more.

So let's create an entry form. You can create any entry form you choose but for the example we will make a short notes template with just a few fields.

Ÿ     Choose File -> New

Ÿ     Choose "Create Entry Form In New Database"

Ÿ     Click CREATE

Ÿ     Name the new file

Ÿ     Click SAVE

You are now in the Entry Form Wizard. The Entry Form Wizard will now step you through creating your form. You can type your field names on separate lines under the field name column (I am using number, date, subject, and notes). The right column, Data Type, allows you to select the type of data that will be in each field. See below.

NOTE: For more on creating an entry form using the Entry Form Wizard please see chapter 4 of the askSam User's Guide.

Setting Styles in the Entry Form Wizard

The Entry Form Wizard will allow you to set styles for both your field names and your field data. New askSam files contain the following pre-defined styles for you to use with your fields:

Ÿ     Field - Default style for fields. Attributes: Arial, 9 point, bold, blue text, silver background

Ÿ     Field Data (Default) - Default style for field data. Attributes: Arial, 12 point

Ÿ     Field Data - Primary - Optional style for field data. Attributes: Arial, 12 point, Bold, Red

Ÿ     Field Data - Secondary - Optional style for field data. Attributes: Arial, 12 point, Bold

The default styles give you a starting point. By selecting a default style for each field and field data the Entry Form Wizard applies the selected style to each field automatically - keeping you from having to do it manually. This saves a lot of time. If you do not like the appearance of the style you can change the attributes of the style later.

Setting Field Styles

The field style (the appearance of your actual field name) is automatically set to the default field style: FIELD. If you have pre-defined styles before creating your entry form you can select another field style. I would suggest leaving this set at the default. Again, if you do not like the appearance of the style you can change the attributes of the style later.

Setting Data Styles

The field data style (the appearance of the text you enter into a field) is automatically set to the FIELD DATA (DEFAULT) style. To change this style for a field simply click on the field, pull down the Data Style drop down and select the new style.

For example, if I wanted to make my subject line stand out by using the FIELD DATA PRIMARY style, my Entry Form Wizard screen would look like...

You can set different data styles for each field. For this example I changed the Subject[ to FIELD DATA PRIMARY and I changed the DATE field to FIELD DATA SECONDARY.

Adding a Form With Styles

To finish your Entry Form...

Ÿ     Click NEXT

Ÿ     In the Form Properties box you can give you form name and set other properties for your Entry Form

Ÿ     Click NEXT

Ÿ     Click ENTER DATA

Ÿ     Fill in your Entry Form with data

Modifying Styles in an already existing file

As I mentioned before, if you do not like the appearance of your entry form you can modify the styles at any time to get a new look - even after you have added documents to the database. The great thing about styles is that when you edit them the changes you make take effect on any text that is assigned to that style. For example, let's say I would rather see my field names be light blue, bold and smaller. To make this change throughout my database I simply modify the FIELD style to:

Ÿ     Choose Format -> Style

Ÿ     Select the FIELD style

Ÿ     Click MODIFY

Ÿ     Click FONT

Make the appropriate appearance changes and

Click OK on the FONT Box

Click OK on the MODIFY STYLE Box

Click APPLY

The changes will be applied to all the documents in your database.

Next month I'll show you how to use paragraph styles in Entry Forms to create memo fields.

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