I like to highlight key objects in my reports. For instance I highlight small subreports that might be confused with regular fields, or that might not be noticed at all. I also highlight formulas that involve variables as a reminder that they shouldn’t be deleted or moved. (Usually a specific location is required for variables to work correctly.)  I will sometimes highlight several formulas with the same color so that I can quickly see which formulas work together. This is simple when the formulas are suppressed or when they are in a suppressed section, but sometimes the object is visible. In that case the object highlighting should only be visible in design mode and not in preview mode. Here’s how you do that.

Most Crystal formatting properties have a formula condition button [x+2] to the right of the normal controls (check mark, drop down, etc).  This allows you control that property based on parameter values or data values. When you use a condition formula there is no need to set that same property using the normal controls.  If you set a formatting property both ways the normal control setting will apply to design view while the formula will apply to preview.

So say I would like a field to have an aqua background in design view but no color in preview. I would first format that field by selecting aqua from the drop down. Then I would go into the condition formula and type: CrNoColor

The field will have an aqua background color in design view but no background color in preview.