|
|
|
|
|
|
|
September 2005 Customizing Forms
Although the customer-related forms in QuickBooks come ready to use, you may want to customize a form to make it more useful for your business. While most of the information in this article applies to all versions of QuickBooks, some of the features you’ll see in the Layout Designer window apply only to QuickBooks Pro and QuickBooks Premier. Creating a Template to Customize Customer-related forms are based on standard templates that come with QuickBooks. These templates contain elements used most commonly on a particular form. You can change the elements that appear on the form as well as the placement of the elements. You modify a template to make these changes. Some customization features aren’t available if you try to customize standard QuickBooks templates. To enable all customization features and give yourself greater flexibility, you should make a copy of a template that you can then customize. Follow these steps to create your own template to customize: 1. Open the Lists menu and click Templates. QuickBooks displays the Templates window see Figure 1.
Figure 1. Select a form.
Tip: QuickBooks 2003 contains more templates than its predecessors; if you don’t see a template that suits your needs, double-check both your QuickBooks CD and the QuickBooks website at www.quickbooks.com for more templates. 2. Highlight the form that you want to customize. 3. Click the Templates button to display the drop-down menu. 4. Click Duplicate. QuickBooks displays the Templates window (see Figure 2). 5. Select the type of form that you want to use as the foundation to create a new template.
Figure 2. Select the form that QuickBooks should use as the foundation for your template.
6. Click OK. QuickBooks creates a copy of the form you selected; it appears in the list with DUP at the beginning of its name. Editing a Template Now that you have a copy of the original to customize, follow these steps to begin making changes to the copy to suit your needs: 1. Make sure that the copy you just created is highlighted in the Templates window. 2. Click the Templates button to display the drop-down menu (refer to Figure 1). 3. Click Edit. QuickBooks displays the Customize dialog box. 4. Change the name of the form to something more meaningful by typing a new name in the Template Name field. The Customize dialog box contains tabs with choices of information that you can display or hide on forms. In Figure 3, you see the Columns tab of the Customize dialog box. This tab contains three columns of boxes—the Screen column, the Print column, and the Order. Placing or removing checks in boxes found in the Screen or Print columns makes the various fields appear on-screen when you print the form or in both places. When a box is checked in either of these columns, the Order column becomes available, and you can choose the order in which the columns will appear on the form.
Figure 3. The Customize dialog box helps you select information that you want to display or hide on forms.
Note: The type of template you’re customizing determines the actual number of tabs you see. For example, you won’t see the Prog Cols tab if you’re customizing a Sales Receipt. The Header, Fields, Prog Columns, and Footer tabs also contain the Screen and Print columns like the Fields tab. Only the Prog Cols tab the same three columns that you find on the Columns tab; the other three tabs contain the Screen and Print columns but not the Order column. The Company, Format, and Printer tabs are set up differently than the other tabs, but still provide you with options you can assign to the form. In Figure 4, you see the Company tab, where you can choose to display your company name, address, logo, and contact information.
Figure 4. Use the Layout Designer to reorganize elements on the form.
Possibly the most important feature in the Layout Designer window is the Undo button. You can use it to undo your last 50 actions in the Layout Designer window. In the main portion of the window, you see form elements positioned on a grid of dots. If you click an element, like we did in Figure 5, QuickBooks places “handles” around the element—a black hatch-mark outline containing small black squares—to indicate that the element is selected. QuickBooks will perform actions you designate on the selected object.
Figure 5. Selected elements appear in a box with a hatch-like border that contains small black boxes.
You can make an element smaller by dragging any of its handles in toward the center of the element; similarly, you can enlarge the element by dragging any handle outward. If you print on a color printer, you might want to place a color border around an element, print text in an element in color, or fill in the background of an element with color. To take any of these actions, click the element and then click the Properties button. QuickBooks displays the box you see in Figure 5. Click the appropriate tab and, to assign a color, click the Color box. QuickBooks displays a color palette that you can use to select a color.
Figure 6. Place color borders around elements, print text in color, or fill in the background of elements in color.
You can add a text box, data field, or an image to a form. Click the Add button to display a dropdown list that contains those three choices. Click the appropriate choice. If you add a text box, QuickBooks displays the Properties box you saw in Figure 6; to place text inside the box, type the text in the Label Field box. If you add a data field, QuickBooks displays the Add Data Field box shown in Figure 6. From the list, select a customer information-related field to place on the form. If you add an image, QuickBooks prompts you to specify a location on your hard drive where the image is stored. Once you have added any element, you can then change the properties of the field by selecting it and clicking the Properties button.
Figure 7. Select a data field to add to the form.
You may have noticed that the buttons in the middle of the toolbar are not available; they become available if you select more than one object at the same time. To select multiple objects, click the first object; then press and hold the Ctrl key on your keyboard as you click a second object; repeat this process as necessary. In addition to adding elements, you can copy the selected element using the Copy button. As you might guess, clicking Remove deletes the selected element. And, the Center HYou can adjust the margins of the form if you click the Margins button. Be aware that changing the margins on the form does not change the margins on your printer. If you set margins that are too small for the selected printer, QuickBooks will warn you and offer to establish margins that will work with your printer. While adding elements, you may notice that they snap to redefined locations on the grid. If you don’t like the behavior of the grid—or simply don’t want to see the grid, click the Grid button to display the Grid and Snap Settings box shown in Figure 7. QuickBooks gives you the option to hide the grid or turn off the Snap to Grid option. You also can control the amount of space that appears between the dots on the grid.
Figure 8. Use this box to control the behavior of the grid in the Layout Designer window.
When you finish customizing your form, click OK twice to save your settings. To use your template, open the appropriate window and select your template from the Template list. Summary
You now have the
information you need to create custom templates that will fill the needs of
your business.
Tyler Martin is a Certified Public Accountant and QuickBooks Pro Advisor. His practice is in the Willow Glen area of San Jose. |
|
