In Monday’s entry, I showed you how to match a control’s background color to the form’s by using the same color for both. It’s a simple cure for a larger problem — keeping colors consistent from object to object. Even when you find a match, you can’t guarantee that the specified colors will be the same, or continue to match, on another system.

If color is important, you should probably stick with the Windows color constants and avoid custom colors. These constants have been around since Access 2000 and they certainly simplify color-related problems. When using Windows color constants, your forms and controls will always match the Windows display settings. In addition, Access will automatically update the colors if the user changes the Windows display settings.

For a complete list of the Windows color constants, view SystemColorConstants in the Object Browser.

Or view the list online. If you need the Long value for a constant, open the Immediate window and type ? plus the constant. For instance, ?vbScrollBars will return -2147483648.