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Datasheet Formatting in Access

In Microsoft Access, you can control the default font used for Datasheet view in Options>>Datasheet. The problem with this is that it affects every datasheet in every database you open on your workstation. This may mean that a user on some other workstation may see the form differently than you do, and that may not be the way you want it.

I wanted to have more control over this and force a font size on subforms that are in datasheet view. In older versions of Access, this was straightforward, but for some reason, in Access 2010, the Datasheet tab on the "Ribbon" doesn't include font size. I wasted too much time on the Internet, and was about to reach the conclusion that this is yet another feature that Microsoft took away from us. Then I realized that it's very simple.

Open your form in datasheet view, the select the Home tab on the "Ribbon". There you can select the font and font size that the datasheet uses. This overrides the default settings. Don't forget to save the form!

Duh, right on the Home tab!

Notice the little expand button at the bottom-right of the Text Formatting section on the "Ribbon". Click that and you will get the Datasheet Formatting dialog, where you can make adjustments to the appearance of the datasheet.

Datasheet Formatting Dialog

Note that some colors may be set to "Automatic" which means they will be determined by the overall theme chosen for the database. This is quirky though if your database came from the pre-2007 days. Setting the color of the Gridlines to automatic, for example, may cause them to be black instead of the theme color. If you use on of the built-in themes you can reapply it to the form, but watch out, that may undo some of the other custom appearance settings you made.

Don't forget to save the form! You need to have the focus on the form, in datasheet view, and click Save. Otherwise the grid settings won't be saved, and Access won't prompt you about it when you close the form.