Legacy Form vs. Active X

[USEN]

Hi all,

I'm new to 2007. Can someone please tell me what the difference between
choosing to create a drop-down listbox using the icon in the "Legacy form"
section vs. the one found in the Active X section?

I'm using 2007, but have created a template for someone who is using 2002.
I used the "Legacy form" icon to create my listbox; however, when I save the
template as "compatible" for 97-2003 versions, the listbox won't convert. My
former version of Word was 2000 & I know that you could create drop-down list
fields in Word 2000, so I cannot understand why it won't convert when saving
the template as "compatible". I tried using Active X instead, but know
absolutely nothing about Active X. While I was able to create the listbox
"field" using Active X, I couldn't figure out how to add the item list of
choices to it.

Any suggestions and/or solutions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[Jay Freedman]

Hi all,

I'm new to 2007. Can someone please tell me what the difference between
choosing to create a drop-down listbox using the icon in the "Legacy form"
section vs. the one found in the Active X section?

I'm using 2007, but have created a template for someone who is using 2002.
I used the "Legacy form" icon to create my listbox; however, when I save the
template as "compatible" for 97-2003 versions, the listbox won't convert. My
former version of Word was 2000 & I know that you could create drop-down list
fields in Word 2000, so I cannot understand why it won't convert when saving
the template as "compatible". I tried using Active X instead, but know
absolutely nothing about Active X. While I was able to create the listbox
"field" using Active X, I couldn't figure out how to add the item list of
choices to it.

Any suggestions and/or solutions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

The dropdown list in the Legacy Tools certainly should convert to 97-2003
format, and the one I just tried did convert properly. I opened it in Word 2003
and it worked. I don't happen to have 2002 handy at the moment, but I'm
confident it would work there, too.

The major difference between the "Legacy form" dropdown controls and the ActiveX
ones is that the ActiveX one requires macro programming to load the list
values-- not just once, but every time the document is opened, because Word
doesn't save the list contents to the document file. To do that, right-click the
dropdown and choose View Code. The VBA editor opens to the ThisDocument module
of the document. There you need to create a Document_Open procedure, something
like this:

Private Sub Document_Open()
With ComboBox1
.AddItem "one"
.AddItem "two"
.AddItem "three"
.ListIndex = 0
End With
End Sub

You also need similar code in a Document_New procedure that executes when a new
document is created from the template. If you want the user's selection to
remain in the box when the document is closed and reopened, then you also need
code to store that selection somewhere (probably in a document variable) before
saving, and restore it in the Document_Open procedure.

Like all macro-driven things, this won't work at all if the user has the macro
security level set to disable all macros.

The Forms dropdown doesn't have all the macro drawbacks, but it does require the
template and all documents based on it to be protected for forms.

 

[USEN]

Hi Jay...thanks for the reply. Not only does it NOT convert, but as I'm
saving it to the "compatible" version, Word tells me right then that it will
become "static"; and when I open the compatible version myself (using 2007)
the control is there, but it doesn't function...the list isn't there, just
the control instructions to "click here". Is there a way I can send you a
copy of either the 2007 or the compatible version so you could perhaps see
what I might be doing wrong? It was designed using Legacy.

Thanks!

 

[Doug Robbins - Word MVP]

See the article "How to create a Userform" at:

http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Userforms/CreateAUserForm.htm


--
Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP

 

[Jay Freedman]

This illustrates the trouble with discussing the same problem in two
separate threads in two newsgroups. As we've already established in the
thread in the docmanagement newsgroup, the control you can't convert is a
"content control" that is available only in Word 2007. If you really do use
a "legacy" dropdown form field, it will convert. Also read my reply about
how to protect the form to make the dropdown work.