Problems with Template

[NewToWordProgramming]

I am trying to take a form (which has been saved as a template and uses
checkboxes and textboxes from the forms toolbar) and put it in a folder on
our Network so different users can access the form. I would prefer that if
one user is in the form, it will not allow other users to make changes until
the form is saved and closed. The form has various MAIN group headers with a
checkbox and my programming allows the user to check this main group header
and it will check everything under that group (I did this with Macro's).
When I email the form to other users for testing, it opens it with the title
Document1 and will not execute the code (The template is saved as
ProjectTemplate and I have a document that is saved as ProjectDocument).

I need to know how I can put this form in a network folder so that when
myself or any user opens it, it will have the changes made from the previous
user. Do I need to put the template and the document in the folder? Any
help is greatly appreciated. Another side note, when I open the template or
the document, it asks me if I want to enable macros and I click yes. Also, I
am on an XP operating system with a newer version of Word and some of the
other people I have emailed the document to for testing are still on '98
machines. Could this be part of the problem?

 

[Charles Kenyon]

You need to back up and learn Word before you start trying to program it.
Otherwise you are going to be reinventing the wheel and having Word's
built-in features work against you. You could start with basic formatting
and styles from my users guide web site or with Shauna Kelly's web site.
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/index.html

Specifically:
Templates http://addbalance.com/usersguide/templates.htm

The expected and good result from using a document template is a new
document which contains all the text in your template and all its
formatting. It has access to any code or other interface modifications
contained in the template but does not, itself, have these elements.

Form from the Forms toolbar: What you are talking about is what Word calls
an "online form." Check this in help. For more about online forms, follow
the links at http://addbalance.com/word/wordwebresources.htm#Forms or
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Customization/FillinTheBlanks.htm especially Dian
Chapman's series of articles. You may also want to look at
http://www.word.mvps.org/FAQs/TblsFldsFms/LinesInForms.htm.

These only work when the document is protected for forms. When it is
protected for forms, your code can't do much with it. Your code can
unprotect and reprotect as needed, but you need to understand what happens
when you do this.

Word is not the best for collaborative documents but does work. To lock
something from other users, you would want it to be a document rather than a
template. Then only one person can have it open at a time.

"checkboxes in MAIN group headers" This group of words sends chills down my
spine. Fields from the Forms toolbar do not belong in Word headers. Period,
ever. I don't know what you are trying to express here.

You may want to look into a UserForm to gather your data and implement
changes rather than using protected forms. But again, before you try
programming Word, you need to learn it, comprehensively. People can afford
to waste a bit of their own time recording macros and learning code, because
in the long term, this can save them time. However, if you are writing code
for others to use, you are going to be wasting their time and causing them
trouble unless you know what you are doing. You will end up making them
angry; hopefully, their anger will be directed at you rather than at using
computers.

Please do not take this personally. I am sure you are a very good
programmer, but Word is an incredibly rich and complex environment in which
to be programming. In some ways it is like being a very good Boy Scout
plopped down in the middle of a dark powerless explosives factory in a war
zone. He's cold and it is dark. The Boy Scout knows how to light a fire but
doesn't know about the explosives ... The first question is whether a fire
is a good idea, but the Boy Scout doesn't know that this is the first
question because no one told him about the explosives. That is overly
dramatic, but the idea is that if you don't know the Word object model
before you start programming it for others, you have no idea what problems
your code could cause or what short cuts are already built-in. If you don't
do this, it should cost you and your supervisor your jobs! This is the sort
of situation where time spent learning will be repaid exponentially; code
written absent the learning will be a black hole that will suck up your time
and that of your users.

People here will be glad to share their experience with you and help you,
but they can't do your job for you.

Finally, if you are going to use Automatic Numbering of any sort in your
documents, see: How to create numbered headings or outline numbering in your
Word document
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/numbering/OutlineNumbering.html. (For
bullets see http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/bullets/controlbullets.html, the
subject is related.)

This is based on ...

Word's Numbering Explained
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/Numbering/WordsNumberingExplained.htm

Hope this helps,
--

Charles Kenyon

Word New User FAQ & Web Directory: http://addbalance.com/word

Intermediate User's Guide to Microsoft Word (supplemented version of
Microsoft's Legal Users' Guide) http://addbalance.com/usersguide


--------- --------- --------- --------- --------- ---------
This message is posted to a newsgroup. Please post replies
and questions to the newsgroup so that others can learn
from my ignorance and your wisdom.

 

[NewToWordProgramming]

I think maybe I did not express myself clearly in the last message. I know
the basics of word very well, but I am new to trying to program. The sites
you have mentioned, I have read other comments on this message board and I
have printed out the documentation to read when I am not online.

I understand what the template is and the document that opens, what I am
trying to find out is WHY it is working on my computer and when I put it in a
public folder for other's to access, they are unable to make any of the
features that I have programmed work. I also have tried emailing the
document to myself and my supervisor and when I try to open it, the features
no longer work. When I said Main group headers, I do not mean a header that
has been formatted to be specified as a header. It's more or less a grouping
(ie...we work with Fuel products, my checklist is:

(chkbox) Tanks
(chkbox) Unleaded
(chkbox) Midgrade
(chkbox) Premium
(chkbox) Diesel
(chkbox) Kerosene

The user can check only unleaded or one of the other choices, or if they
check the checkbox next to tanks, it checks all of them. It is a checkoff
form and not an actual header, I apologize for not making that clearer.

I have also searched and read up on Online forms prior to posting. I do
understand that template is not what I want the other users to access, simply
the document, but again, the document does not work once I send it out.

I do not plan to use automatic numbering (which I do not think I mentioned
in my last post). This is a simple form which only requires the users to
check off a topic as they complete it. I did not feel that my question was
asking anyone to perform my job for me, as I stated, I am new to WORD
programming, therefore I thought this was a forum to seek help for a problems
I was encountering. I felt the need to express where I was trying to put the
document in the even that this would help others to answer my question.

My supervisor nor my job is dependent on this document, it is not a
requested project but simply something I am working on to try to keep track
of completed items during a project, they are currently writing things in a
notebook and I would like to start with a simple checklist.

I do appreciate your suggestion to try Shauna Kelly's web site as that is
the one out of the sites you suggested that I have not researched and I do
appreciate your comment regarding UserForms, I will research that topic as
well.

I will however not post to this site again because of the assumptions you
have made. I do find this site contains a great deal of information and I
will read feedback from other users who have been helpful without being
condescending.

 

[Charles Kenyon]

Hi,

Please do continue to post. I'm sorry if I came across too strong. We all
begin at the beginning. I continue to learn a great deal from these
newsgroups, sometimes from displaying my ignorance blatantly.

Check out the posting guidelines to get the best information from the
newsgroups. http://www.mvps.org/word/FindHelp/Posting.htm
The more specific your subject line, the more likely you are to get someone
to read it who can answer your question.

When you create a document based on a template, the document will not have
any code from the template unless the template is attached. While this can
be done in a networked environment, it is not easy to do. You have to be
very careful in setting up each user's Word so that the template attachment
will re-link.

You can put code directly in a document, but such code is easily disabled,
often without the user's knowledge.
--
Charles Kenyon

Word New User FAQ & Web Directory: http://addbalance.com/word

Intermediate User's Guide to Microsoft Word (supplemented version of
Microsoft's Legal Users' Guide) http://addbalance.com/usersguide


--------- --------- --------- --------- --------- ---------
This message is posted to a newsgroup. Please post replies
and questions to the newsgroup so that others can learn
from my ignorance and your wisdom.

 

[Lesley Regan]

I am trying to take a form (which has been saved as a template and uses
checkboxes and textboxes from the forms toolbar) and put it in a folder on
our Network so different users can access the form. I would prefer that if
one user is in the form, it will not allow other users to make changes until
the form is saved and closed. The form has various MAIN group headers with a
checkbox and my programming allows the user to check this main group header
and it will check everything under that group (I did this with Macro's).
When I email the form to other users for testing, it opens it with the title
Document1 and will not execute the code (The template is saved as
ProjectTemplate and I have a document that is saved as ProjectDocument).

I need to know how I can put this form in a network folder so that when
myself or any user opens it, it will have the changes made from the previous
user. Do I need to put the template and the document in the folder? Any
help is greatly appreciated. Another side note, when I open the template or
the document, it asks me if I want to enable macros and I click yes. Also, I
am on an XP operating system with a newer version of Word and some of the
other people I have emailed the document to for testing are still on '98
machines. Could this be part of the problem?

Just a thought -- a crumb of information, as it were -- if you
double-left-click to open the template, it will open as Document 1 in Word.
If you right-click to open the template, the template itself will open for
editing. I can't envision how a template that creates a new document based
on the template could be used collaboratively. But, I only read your request
and Charles's answer a couple of times, so I hope I'm not off-track here.

Lesley
--

 

[Charles Kenyon]

Unless you have a group trying to design a template (not what this sounds
like) you would want a document.
--
Charles Kenyon

Word New User FAQ & Web Directory: http://addbalance.com/word

Intermediate User's Guide to Microsoft Word (supplemented version of
Microsoft's Legal Users' Guide) http://addbalance.com/usersguide


--------- --------- --------- --------- --------- ---------
This message is posted to a newsgroup. Please post replies
and questions to the newsgroup so that others can learn
from my ignorance and your wisdom.

 

[Lesley Regan]

Agreed -- This is complicated!

Lesley
--

Unless you have a group trying to design a template (not what this sounds
like) you would want a document.
--
Charles Kenyon

Word New User FAQ & Web Directory: http://addbalance.com/word

Intermediate User's Guide to Microsoft Word (supplemented version of
Microsoft's Legal Users' Guide) http://addbalance.com/usersguide


--------- --------- --------- --------- --------- ---------
This message is posted to a newsgroup. Please post replies
and questions to the newsgroup so that others can learn
from my ignorance and your wisdom.

 

[sparky191]

Did I miss a post. Whats the problem NewToWordProgramming is
experiencing?

 

[NewToWordProgramming]

I too apologize for not being irritated in my post. Charles, you helped more
than you know. As I stated earlier, I have looked at all of the links and
tutorials I could find before I began creating this document. The site you
gave me (Shauna Kelly) some how clicked the light bulb on in my head.

I had everything set up correctly and the reason I posted EXACTLY what I was
trying to do is because I thought that had an impact on the problem I was
experiencing. Even before you posted again I had figured out the problem but
you were right. I did not have the document did not have any code behind it
and THAT was the main problem. After reading the information on Shauna
Kelly's website, I realized this and I exported the macro's from the template
and imported them to the document and it has been working like a charm.

I did tell you that I wanted to put the document on a network location so
multiple users in the group could access it. As long as it was only on my
computer it was working, but then the template was there as well. When I
emailed it or put it in a folder on the network, it would not work.

I do appreciate all the assistance and I did want to let you know that,
regardless of how I took your comments, you were trying to help and you did.
THANK YOU!

 

[Charles Kenyon]

Glad I was able to help.
--
Charles Kenyon

Word New User FAQ & Web Directory: http://addbalance.com/word

Intermediate User's Guide to Microsoft Word (supplemented version of
Microsoft's Legal Users' Guide) http://addbalance.com/usersguide


--------- --------- --------- --------- --------- ---------
This message is posted to a newsgroup. Please post replies
and questions to the newsgroup so that others can learn
from my ignorance and your wisdom.