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Figure 13.9.
Looking at the canvas
with the Layout
Editor.

Working with the Layout Editor

When you invoke the Layout Editor, you'll notice that the menu items change. From the Layout Editor, there are several menu items that you can select under Format and Arrange. To begin with, let's change the font for all the text items.

Formatting Text

To select all the items on the canvas, press Ctrl+a. To change the font for all the selected items, select Format | Font, and the Font window will appear. Select MS Sans Serif, Regular font style, and 10 points (see Figure 13.10). Click OK for the change to take effect.

TIP
To select multiple items, you can use the mouse to draw a rectangle around the items to be selected by holding the left button down and dragging the mouse until all the items are enclosed by the rectangle. Alternatively, you can select multiple items while holding down the Shift key.

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Figure 13.10.
Changing the fontfor
selected items.

Siing Objects

If you look at the layout, there are several fields that should be resized. For example, Class_Building and Class_Room can be made narrower. To change the width of a field, select the item with the mouse. Grab a point on the right side of the item and, holding down the left mouse button, drag the point to the left until the item is the desired width. Reduce the width of Class_ID, Schedule_ID, Class_Building, Class_Room, and Instructor_ID (see Figure 13.11). Don't worry if the items are no longer aligned with each other; you'll correct that in a little while.

Let's remove the rectangle around the master block. Select the bottom of the rectangle and press the Delete key. Reposition the fields and their text labels. Move the Button Palette items to the top of the canvas. Also, let's add a rectangle around the Button Palette items, the Department table fields, and their labels.

  1. To do this, select the rectangle tool from the vertical toolbar.
  2. Move the mouse to the position of the upper-left corner of the rectangle, hold the left mouse button down, drag the mouse to the lower-right corner of the rectangle, and release the mouse. Depending on your previous actions in the Layout Editor, you may or may not be able to see the rectangle.
  3. To make the rectangle visible, select the Line Color tool, as shown in Figure 13.12 (notice the bubble help when the mouse is placed over the tool). You will see a window containing the available colors—select black (see Figure 13.13).

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Figure 13.11.
Reducing the width of
detail block items.

Figure 13.12.
Selecting the Line
Color tool to make the
rectangle visible.

Figure 13.13.
Setting the line color
for the rectangle.

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  1. To give the rectangle an inset bevel, select Format | Bevel | Inset from the menu. The rectangle should now have an inset bevel as shown in Figure 13.14. Of course, this is a matter of personal taste; you can use whatever visual styles you prefer.

Figure 13.14.
Choosing the inset
bevel for the rectangle.

Modifying Text

Some of the headings in the Class block need to be changed: in some cases, more appropriate headings should be used, or the headings need to be formatted. For example, to change Class Building to be simply Building, select the text with the mouse and then select the text tool. The pointer will become a crosshair. Move the crosshair to Class Building and left-click the heading; a box is formed around the heading, and an insertion point will indicate where you are editing the text (see Figure 13.15). Let's remove the word Class from the heading.

Figure 13.15.
Modifying the text
heading.


If a column heading is wider than the column that it covers, you may want to place the words onto separate lines. This will allow you to squeeze the columns more closely. For instance, you can change Instructor ID so that Instructor and ID are on two lines. To do this, select the column heading, select the text tool, and left-click the column heading. Move the insertion point to the beginning of ID and press Enter.

To center the column heading, select Format | Alignment | Center from the menu.

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Sizing, Spacing, and Aligning Objects

When you were repositioning the items in the Class block, they became misaligned. Also, it is possible that you accidentally resized some of the items. To make a group of items the same size, select all of them, either by dragging a rectangle around the objects with the mouse or by clicking each object while holding down the Shift key.

For example, select these seven items in the Class block: the scrollbar, Class_ID, Schedule_ID, Class_Building, Class_Room, Course_ID, and Instructor_ID. To make these items the same vertical size, select Arrange | Size Objects from the menu. A window named Size Objects will appear. Because you don't want to change the width of any of these items, leave Width set to No Change. For Height, choose the Largest radio button; that will make all the items the same height as the largest item (see Figure 13.16). Click OK for the change to take effect.

Figure 13.16.
Sizing a groupof
items.

Now you'll align the items. Make sure that the items are still selected. Select Arrange | Align Objects. A window named Align Objects will appear. Set the Align To radio group to Each Other. Set the Horizontally radio group to Distribute; this will distribute the horizontal spacing evenly between the items. Set the Vertically radio group to Align Top, and then click OK (see Figure 13.17).

NOTE
If the items are not distributed evenly in the horizontal direction or aligned vertically at the top, you may accidentally have selected another item that is interfering with the alignment.

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