I am losing data in a form created in word when the form is email.

[Mike F]

I have created a form using word 2003 and saved the document as a template.
In the form there are a couple of drop downs that the users can select.
After they have filled out the form, it is then emailed through word to a
predetermined email address with a specific subject line. When the document
is emailed, all information shows up in Outlook, except for the data from the
drop down fields.

Any ideas??

Any help would be greatly appreciated as I am not an expert word user nor
sure if I have set this up correctly from the beginning.

Thanks,
Mike

 

[Cindy M -WordMVP-]

Hi =?Utf-8?B?TWlrZSBG?=,

I have created a form using word 2003 and saved the document as a template.
In the form there are a couple of drop downs that the users can select.
After they have filled out the form, it is then emailed through word to a
predetermined email address with a specific subject line. When the document
is emailed, all information shows up in Outlook, except for the data from the
drop down fields.

the problem is that, when you send a Word document as email, the document is
being "translated" to HTML. And this conversion doesn't necessarily understand
all the Word stuff.

Rather than use a dropdown, in this particular form, you might try the approach
outlined in the following article (Userform provides the dropdown, but the
selected entry appears in a textfield):

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;198561

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jun 8 2004)
http://www.word.mvps.org

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[Bill Foley]

In addition to Cindy's advice, if you are using formfields from the Forms
toolbar (text fields, combo boxes), you can add a line of code to your macro
(assuming that is what you are using to e-mail the document to a
pre-determined address) that unlinks your form field data. This could be a
simple one-line macro that is assigned to the "Exit" property of your last
field. The line of code is:

ActiveDocument.Fields.Unlink

I haven't tried it with Outlook, but it does take your combo box data and
change it simply to text. This might work. By the way, are you using a
macro to automatically send this document upon completion? If so, holler
back and I can walk you through the steps to add this line of code (or a
separate macro).

 

[Charles Kenyon]

I suspect you would also need to unprotect the form before unlinking the
fields.

 

[Bill Foley]

Actually if you assign a macro on Exit that only unlinks your fields, it
will work. The document remains protected, but the fields were no longer
fields, but merely text. Of course, it is always a good idea to unprotect
after unlinking.