I am managing a database of students for an academy and I would like to be able to have the background color of a field based on whether there is any content in a separate field.

More specifically...I have field where the financial aid office enters the amount if any of an awarded grant. I want the overall background of my page OR the background of the field box next to the field where the grant amount is entered to change to red if there is text in the grant amount field.

I am using filemaker advanced 8.5 and so i cannot find an easy way to conditionally format the field.

Hi caputz, and Welcome to the Forum,

If I'm understanding what you want, this subject comes up from time to time.

It is a lot easier in 9.x, using the Conditional Format Function, but you can accomplish something close in 8.5 by using the Text Format Functions.

Something like:

Case ( not IsEmpty ( Grant ) ; TextColor ( Grant ; RGB ( 250 ; 0 ; 0 ) ) ; TextColor ( Grant ; RGB ( 0 ; 0 ; 0 ) ) )

Depending on which field is used to triger the change, I chose where you might enter a date in a field called "Grant"

HTH

Lee

[color:red]Forgot a link that show more of this. Click Here!

thank you for your reply! Would that be able to alter the background color of a different field? No right? That would enable me to conditionally format the text in that field, but not the background of another field...or am I wrong? I am still constantly learning the depths of filemaker...I have been trying to convince my management to let me upgrade to 9.x but as of now NG...

Take a look at my attachment to this thread Link

It is in v5, but you should be able drop it on your verions Icon, and it will convert it.

HTH

Lee