Anchoring for responsive layouts in FileMaker

Beginner

Use object anchoring to control how layout objects resize and reposition when the FileMaker window is resized.

What you'll learn

How Top, Bottom, Left, and Right anchors work
Common patterns: stretching fields, pinning buttons to corners
Why anchoring all four sides makes an object stretch

Anchoring (Inspector > Position tab) determines which edges of an object stay at a fixed distance from the window edges as the window is resized — enabling responsive behavior.

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How anchoring works

Each object has four anchor checkboxes (Top, Bottom, Left, Right) in the Inspector > Position tab. An anchor keeps the object a fixed distance from that window edge.

TEXT

Anchor Top + Left only   → object stays top-left, does not resize (default)
Anchor Top + Left + Right → object stretches horizontally as window widens
Anchor Top + Bottom      → object stretches vertically as window grows
Anchor Bottom + Right    → object stays bottom-right (useful for Cancel/OK buttons)
All four                  → object stretches in both dimensions

Named styles and themes in FileMaker layouts Slide and Resize for collapsing blank space in FileMaker reports