When designing a layout in FileMaker you quite often want an object to look exactly the same as another, for example when laying out lots of fields.  You could use the Duplicate menu command in the edit menu, or the keyboard shortcut for that, Ctrl + D / Command + D.

Another, even easier way is to just hold down the Control key on PC (or Option key on a Mac) whilst dragging the layout object you want to duplicate and a ‘+’ sign will appear next to the pointer to show that you are duplicating the control and not just moving the original, which it would do if you weren’t holding down control/option the whole time you are dragging the control.

If you do accidently let go of the modifier key before you finish dragging and then end up moving the original control instead of duplicating it, you can easily reverse the change by using the Undo command in the Edit menu, or use the keyboard shortcut Control + Z (Command + Z on Mac)

When in layout mode if you find yourself repeatedly adding fields for example and changing the formatting each time, you’ll be happy to know you can make each new item the same!

To change the new layout object defaults you just have to Ctrl+Click (Command+Click on Mac) on the field you want to copy the settings and formatting for to the defaults.  Now all newly created items will be exactly the same.