Conditional Formatting

InfoPath adds the potentially very useful functionality of conditional formatting. Conditional formatting simply means that the visual appearance of a part of a form depends on some condition, typically a condition in the form data. In some extreme (but very useful) cases, conditional formatting determines whether a part of a form is visible.

Suppose a salesman fills in an InfoPath form to report weekly sales figures and action points that need to be taken. The background color of an actions-needed section ”itself possibly a repeating section ”can be changed to a bright color to highlight the importance of the item, if its priority is entered as high in a form control. This means that high-priority content is unlikely to be overlooked.

Another plausible scenario where conditional formatting is potentially useful is in a health questionnaire. The form containing the health questionnaire might have two sets of gender-specific questions that are hidden before the user fills in the form. Depending on the gender entered by the user in a section on basic personal information, a section for health questions specific to the user 's gender can be displayed, while the corresponding section for the other gender remains unseen.

Conditional formatting can also be used for other purposes. For example, text color might be used to indicate sales figures that fall below (red) or exceed (black) target sales.

Such uses of conditional formatting provide an intelligent electronic highlighter to flag important parts of a form that need particularly close attention.