Conditional Formatting in Access

Conditional Formatting allows you to set a condition for a field, and then specify formatting based on that condition. For example, you could tell Access to format a field's text with red coloring if the field value is less than 0, or black if it's greater than or equal to 0.

1. In Design View or Layout View, click the field you want to format.

   You need to select a field that's bound to an underlying value or text. For example, you can't use conditional formatting on a label that contains text that has simply been typed in.

2. Click the Format tab.
3. Click the Conditional Formatting button.

   The Conditional Formatting Rules Manager dialog box appears. Here all the applied Conditional Formatting rules are displayed.

4. Click New Rule.
   
5. Select a rule type.
6. If you select Check values in the current record or use an expression, enter the conditions in the Format only cells where fields.

   Also select the formats that need to be applied to values that meet the conditions using the buttons to the right of the Preview field.

   For example, you could select "Field Value Is," "less than," enter "0," and then select red formatting to format any value less than 0 with red text.

7. Select the formats that need to be applied to values that meet the conditions and click OK.
   
8. Click OK.
   

Access applies the conditional formatting that you specified.