Use Anchors to ensure that a control maintains its current position relative to an edge of its parent, even if the parent is resized. When its parent is resized, the control holds its position relative to the edges to which it is anchored.

If a control is anchored to opposite edges of its parent, the control stretches when its parent is resized. For example, if a control has its Anchors property set to [akLeft, akRight], the control stretches when the width of its parent changes.

Anchors is enforced only when the parent is resized. Thus, for example, if a control is anchored to opposite edges of a form at design time and the form is created in a maximized state, the control is not stretched because the form is not resized after the control is created.

Note: If a control should maintain contact with three edges of its parent (hugging one side of the parent and stretching the length of that side), use the Align property instead. Unlike Anchors, Align allows controls to adjust to changes in the size of other aligned sibling controls as well as changes to the parent’s size.

Value	Meaning
akTop	The control’s position is fixed with respect to the top edge of its parent
akLeft	The control’s position is fixed with respect to the left edge of its parent
akRight	The control’s position is fixed with respect to the right edge of its parent
akBottom	The control’s position is fixed with respect to the bottom edge of its parent

Help

Anchors Property