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How to: Position controls on Windows Forms

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To position controls, use the Windows Forms Designer in Visual Studio or specify the Location property.

Position a control on the design surface of the Windows Forms Designer

In Visual Studio, drag the control to the appropriate location with the mouse.

Note

Select the control and move it with the ARROW keys to position it more precisely. Also, snaplines assist you in placing controls precisely on your form. For more information, see Walkthrough: Arranging Controls on Windows Forms Using Snaplines.

Position a control using the Properties window

  1. In Visual Studio, select the control you want to position.

  2. In the Properties window, enter values for the Location property, separated by a comma, to position the control within its container.

    The first number (X) is the distance from the left border of the container; the second number (Y) is the distance from the upper border of the container area, measured in pixels.

    Note

    You can expand the Location property to type the X and Y values individually.

Position a control programmatically

  1. Set the Location property of the control to a Point.

    Button1.Location = New Point(100, 100)

    button1.Location = new Point(100, 100);

    button1->Location = Point(100, 100);

  2. Change the X coordinate of the control's location using the Left subproperty.

    Button1.Left = 300

    button1.Left = 300;

    button1->Left = 300;

Increment a control's location programmatically

Set the Left subproperty to increment the X coordinate of the control.

Button1.Left += 200

button1.Left += 200;

button1->Left += 200;

Note

Use the Location property to set a control's X and Y positions simultaneously. To set a position individually, use the control's Left (X) or Top (Y) subproperty. Do not try to implicitly set the X and Y coordinates of the Point structure that represents the button's location, because this structure contains a copy of the button's coordinates.

See also