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# Highlight the Current Control in an Access Form...Without VBA!
- URL: https://nolongerset.com/highlight-current-control/
- Published: 2023-11-21T04:59:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-05-08T12:36:57.000Z
- Description: Let's adapt Colin Riddington's excellent no-code current control highlighting technique to work with different form background colors.
- Author: Mike Wolfe
- Tags: Form Design, #Import 2026-05-20 02:59

Colin Riddington (a.k.a., IslaDogs) [posted a clever technique](https://isladogs.co.uk/highlight-current-control/index.html) for highlighting the active text box or combo box on a Microsoft Access form without using any code whatsoever:

[Highlight Current ControlThis article describes two simple methods of highlighting the current control without requiring any code![](https://isladogs.co.uk/images/favicon.png)Isladogs on AccessColin Riddington![](https://isladogs.co.uk/img/logoOG.png)](https://isladogs.co.uk/highlight-current-control/index.html)

The technique takes advantage of a bit of a quirk in Access text boxes and combo boxes. Even when these controls have a "Transparent" Back Style, the background color becomes visible ***when the control has the focus***.

The idea, then, is to set the background *color* for your text boxes and combo boxes to a highlight color while setting the background *style* to transparent. This will hide the highlight color when the control does not have the focus, but display it when the control does.

- Back Color: `#FFF200`
- Back Style: `Transparent`

Here's what this looks like in action:

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/eb/d7/ebd732c1-5f03-4f07-b386-5d08557e15c9/content/images/2023/11/HighlightCurrent.gif)

## Dealing with Non-White Backgrounds

One downside of this approach is that it doesn't work as well if you use a different background color for your forms than for your text and combo boxes.

For example, here's the same form from above if we set the background color to green:

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/eb/d7/ebd732c1-5f03-4f07-b386-5d08557e15c9/content/images/2023/11/GreenBackground.gif)

One solution to this problem is to place identically sized rectangles directly behind the text boxes and set them to your preferred text box back color, such as white (`#FFFFFF`). 

Here's what that technique looks like in action:

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/eb/d7/ebd732c1-5f03-4f07-b386-5d08557e15c9/content/images/2023/11/WhiteBoxes.gif)

## Sizing and Aligning the Rectangles

Manually sizing and aligning the rectangles would be a tedious, error-prone process.

Instead, I highly recommend taking advantage of some [legacy shortcut keys](https://nolongerset.com/blast-from-the-past/) to streamline the process of aligning and resizing the rectangles:

[Blast From the PastWhy use keyboard shortcuts from Access 2003 when developing in 2020? Because starting with Access 2007, the new shortcuts suck.![](https://nolongerset.com/favicon.png)No Longer SetMike Wolfe![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/eb/d7/ebd732c1-5f03-4f07-b386-5d08557e15c9/content/images/2020/10/Marilyn_Monroe_photo_pose_Seven_Year_Itch.jpg)](https://nolongerset.com/blast-from-the-past/)

Before we get to that, though, let's start by setting some default properties of the rectangle control on our form:

1. Select the Rectangle control tool to change its default properties
2. Set "Special Effect" to **Flat**
3. Set "Border Style" to **Transparent**
4. Set "Back Color" to **#FFFFFF**
5. Set "Width" to **0.1"**
6. Set "Height" to **0.1"**

With these defaults, we can click inside of our existing text boxes to create a small square rectangle that we can reliably reposition and resize. Here are the step-by-step instructions:

1. Select the Rectangle control tool
2. Left-click inside the text/combo box to place a small square
3. \[Shift\] + \[Left-click\] on the text/combo box to create a multi-control selection with both the rectangle and text/combo box
4. \[Alt\] + \[O\], \[A\], \[L\]: *align left*
5. \[Alt\] + \[O\], \[A\], \[T\]: *align top*
6. \[Alt\] + \[O\], \[S\], \[W\]: *resize to widest*
7. \[Alt\] + \[O\], \[S\], \[T\]: *resize to tallest*
8. \[Shift\] + \[Left-click\]: *deselect rectangle control (text/combo remains selected)*
9. \[Alt\] + \[O\], \[R\]: *bring to front*

Here's a screen recording of what this looks like:

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/eb/d7/ebd732c1-5f03-4f07-b386-5d08557e15c9/content/images/2023/11/RepositionSquare.gif)