electronic forms

[jmd0252]

office 2003 question. Trying to do an electronic form in word 2003. It looks pretty,, however does not work.. I can type in the name, etc, location,,, but cannot get the "check boxes", to work. I am asking this question for my better half,, she is trying to do one, for her school system. Any help is appreicated.

 

[SkipVought]

Hi,

A Word "form" must be LOCKED before you can use it. Check the Forms Toolbar.

Skip,

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[jmd0252]

OK,,, once I "lock", the form, via the forms toolbar,,, I cannot enter test in the "free form", area, such as name, address, etc.. Now what,, how do I get both to work???

 

[SkipVought]

CAN'T. Its one or the other.

Skip,

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[webrabbit]

Convert it to a PDF form.

 

[SkipVought]

"'free form', area, such as name, address, etc"

Why not make Name, Address, etc, Form Fields?

Skip,

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[fumei]

Please describe more fully what it is you want. As Skip suggests, if you want to take in user input (name, address etc.) then thyey should be formfields.

Question: if name and addres are in the "free form" what ARE you using for the formfields? What are the formfields, just checkboxes? Are you sure you are using formfield checkboxes (from the Forms toolbar), and not checkboxes from the Controls toolbar?

faq219-2884

Gerry
My paintings and sculpture

 

[jmd0252]

boys and girls,,,understand the users here.. PDF would be ok, except,, there goes the question of what version Adobe, training of who is working in the forms, cost of software, and who does the admin, work. Skip,, I do not have a clue,, what you mean "make them form fields", I understand the concept, as I am a programmer,, but that does not mean,, I work in Word. So pretend I am a dummie,, which of course I am with Word.

 

[jmd0252]

OK,, my wife works in a school system. They are looking at using some electronic forms for the special ed department. So she has copies of some forms that are used by other school systems. If you protect the form, the check boxes works, but you cannot enter name, etc. If you do not protect the form,, you can enter name data, etc,, but check boxes do not work. I suspect,,the forms are not setup correctly,, I do not know,, I am looking at one now,, and ???? I do not really know what I am looking at,, just kind of feeling my way around. So any help,,, is more than I know, I am just a dumb RPG programmer.

 

[SkipVought]

jmd0252,

Don't sell yourself short. Ignorance is not stupidity. I assume that, beting an RPG programmer, you are not stupid, albeit ignorant of the functionality available in MS Word. We ALL start at some point of ignorance and hopefully advance in knowledge.

Gerry is the resident MS Word guru. Heed his words.


Skip,

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[fneily]

Click View - Toolbars - Forms. This brings up the Forms toolbar which has on it buttons for you to make formfields, eg. textbox, checkbox, etc. You must click one of these buttons, draw your control on the document then lock the document.
What everyone is asking is how your other half created her entry boxes.

 

[jmd0252]

she did not,, she got the forms sent to her, or downloaded via a web site,, which is interesting,, because the forms "are suppose" to work. She has made some cosmetic adjustments,, correct school name and district, but she has not changed properties of any section of the form.

 

[fneily]

Since the checkboxes work when the form is locked, can she just delete the original texboxes and then, using the Forms toolbar, create her own textboxes in their place? A little work but it gets her to a usable document.

 

[fumei]

Formfields are for user input.

So....if you need user input, like entering name, address - WHATEVER - use a text formfield.

If you protect the form, the check boxes works, but you cannot enter name, etc.

You most certainly could enter name etc, if where you wanted to enter them were also formfields. Text formfields.

Formfields work like this:

There are three types. Checkbox, Text, Dropdown.

When protected for forms, nothing in the document is editable. The users do whatever it is they need to do, with the formfields. They check Checkboxes, they enter text in Textboxes, they select items from Dropdowns.

You can also, make sections of the document NOT protected for forms, by using Continuous Section breaks, or even page break Sections breaks. Word protects by Section. The user can type text freely into unprotected Sections. NOTE: protecting for forms makes global restrictions on the entire document, even unprotected Sections. Protecting for forms disables many format features even in unprotected Sections. In protected sections, the user can not do ANY edits. All they can do is play with the checkboxes, text inputs, and dropdowns.

So, have the place the users enter names etc. other formfields.

faq219-2884

Gerry
My paintings and sculpture

 

[jmd0252]

A final note,,, for all the people who took the time to answer and help,, thanks a bunch.