
For the first time in my life, I know what Renee Zellweger was thinking when she told Tom Cruise to stop talking in thatįamous scene in Jerry Maguire-“You had me at ‘custom styles.’” Hang on while I get a tissue.

With FileMaker 13, I can just redefine the button style and be done in about 30 seconds.

In the past, I’d have to reformat every single button on every single layout-work that often took hours. Say my default buttons throughout a database with 187 layouts use Arial 10 labels with a gray background and black borders, and now I want to change that to Helvetica Neue 11 with a light blue background and no borders. And once objects are formatted using styles, it’s breathtakingly easy to reformat an entire database simply by redefining a couple of styles.

Once styles are defined, it’s far quicker to format objects by applying a style than by applying ad hoc formats for font, font size, field color, field alignment, padding, etc. Like character and paragraph styles in your favorite word processor, object-formatting styles in FileMaker Pro 13 and FileMaker Pro 13 Advanced are double-barreled time-savers.
