How to Customize Dynamics CRM Column Width for Form Views

Microsoft Dynamics CRM is endlessly customizable (see our post on customizing the ribbon bar for just one example). Did you know you can change the column width in your CRM? This post will walk you through an example on how to customize Dynamics CRM column width when the out-of-the-box widths for a CRM form view just aren’t good enough.

The available out-of-the-box column widths are 25px, 50px, 75px, 100px, 125px, 150px, 200px and 300px. The max column width is 300px:

“But I want my columns larger than 300 px!” you say. Perhaps the max column width is not wide enough to show the full information of your account names:

Whatever your reason for wanting something beyond the available settings, the following steps will walk you through how to configure your own column width.

1. Create a new solution:

2. Add the entity you are configuring for. Here we pick Account for the example.

3. Export the solution

4. Extract the solution .zip file:

5. Open the customizations.xml with Visual Studio or any xml editor:

6.. Update the width value:

Change the width to 400px from 300px:

7. Save the file and Import the solution back:

8. Publish the Solution:

9. Check the Result:

Now your Dynamics CRM column width is customized as you configured. Bam!

By following step 1 to 9, you can easily edit any column width for any view. You can delete the solution anytime and go back to out-of-the-box configurations, or you can reconfigure the width as you like to and re-import the solution again.

Be noted, republishing the out-of-the-box configuration will overwrite customization configuration. The rule is last one wins!

Here are some other good blog posts on Dynamics CRM customizations you might want to check out:

• How to change a Dynamics CRM icon for a custom entity
• How to add a new report category in CRM 2011

Happy CRM’ing!

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JoeCRM

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Expert at PowerObjects

Joe CRM is a CRM superhero who runs on pure Microsoft Dynamics CRM adrenaline. As the face of PowerObjects, Joe CRM’s mission is to reveal innovative ways to use Dynamics CRM and bring the application to more business and organizations around the world.

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