User-applied formatting of text field contents?

[Ed Kennedy]

My organization wants to distribute a MS Word document that is
protected as a form, and includes a number of text fields for users to
type in some relatively lengthy explanations.

We would like for the person completing the form to be able to apply
color highlighting to words or phrases within their response text to
draw our reviewers' attention to specific topics. However, Word does
not seem to allow a user of the protected form to apply any formatting
whatsoever to their response.

Is there a solution or work-around to this limitation?

We are building the form document using MS Word 2002.

All suggestions are appreciated!

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

One approach would be to use unprotected sections instead of text form
fields for these long text entries. If you want to (somewhat) limit the
length of the entry, you can use a single large table cell with the row
height and column width specified exactly (auto resizing disabled), though
knowledgeable users will be able to change these properties.