Learning how to Create Forms in Word

[Brooke]

I am just learning how to create forms in Word. I usually just use the old
fashion way of doing things but I am insistent on learning new things and
creating forms is one of them! I have recently started to create my first
Word form and thought I'd start simple, so I'm doing a Fax Cover Sheet. I
made the needed tables, boxes, etc but I'm having two problems:

1.) I want to have the user be able to open the doc on their computer and
tab from one text box to the other and right now it doesn't do that, it goes
through each table cell. Is there a way to have it tab to the boxes I want
and skip others?
2.) I created (or thought I created) a drop down list in my cover sheet for
different cells for example "From: Mary, Joe, Sue, John." However, even
though I was able to add the names in the properties, there is no bar on the
side of the list for the person viewing the document to choose a different
name. Do I have to add some type of Macro to this? P.S. Macro's is
something I'm not familiar with either.

Any help you can give would be great. Thanks for helping out a novice!

 

[Paul Ballou]

http://addbalance.com/usersguide/forms.htm
Try the info here
--
Paul Ballou
MVP Office
http://office.microsoft.com/home
http://www.freeserifsoftware.com/
http://www.ballousgiftshop.com

Life would be easier if we could view the source code

 

[Brooke]

I'm sorry, I have read over much of the information at this site and it's not
as helpful as I was hoping. It tells me to run an Exit Macro on the
Properties of the Form Tabs. When I try to do that I am not allowed to type
in the Properties>>Exit Macro spot, it just has a default that says "(none)"
and won't let me replace it.
Any other suggestions?
Thanks.

 

[LVTravel]

To get the form to work once created, you have to protect
the document. Click on Tools, Protect Document and then on
Forms. Don't add a password until the document works as
expected and then add a password to keep others from
changing your work.

Hope this helps, let us know.

 

[Brooke]

Thank you. That answered my question! I guess I didn't have to enable any
macros to do what I needed, I just needed to protect the doc like you said.
If you don't mind, I have one more question. Since it's a Fax Cover Sheet
and people are going to be opening it daily to fill them out and such, I have
included a text box and chose for it to be "Current Date." I thought that
chosing this would have it automatically update each day. However, I created
the form yesterday and today it still says yesterday's date. I could just
use the "Insert Date, update automatically" on the Microsoft Word Toolbar and
go that route, but I thought I would ask and see if there was a way to create
a text box with the date and have it update automatically before I just give
up on it. Thanks for your help.

 

[LVTravel]

When you Insert, Date field in the document and
automatically update is set, this will normally work when
the protected document is opened. If it does not, the
"operator" only needs to click on it and press the F9 key
which automatically updates to the current set date of the
computer.

I don't see any way to have an automatically updating field
without writing a macro to force the update when using the
Insert, Field, Date item. It won't update the same way that
the Insert, Date does.

Sorry that I can't be more help on this one.

 

[Brooke]

Thank you so much for your help. I really appreciate it.
Brooke