Why does design mode keep getting turned back on?

[Steve]

I am making an online form using MS Word 2003. The form includes radio
buttons. I have designed the entire form and protected it so that only the
fields are available for data entry. Everything seems to work fine when I
test until I save the form (either as a Word document or a Word template).
When I reopen, it is still protected, but in design mode. I have to
unprotect, click off design mode and reprotect before the form works. Then,
if I resave, design mode goes back on. This happens no matter whether it is
in Normal, Print layout, or Web view.

How do I get it to save without turning on the design mode?

Thanks in advance for you guidance.

 

[Jay Freedman]

I am making an online form using MS Word 2003. The form includes radio
buttons. I have designed the entire form and protected it so that only the
fields are available for data entry. Everything seems to work fine when I
test until I save the form (either as a Word document or a Word template).
When I reopen, it is still protected, but in design mode. I have to
unprotect, click off design mode and reprotect before the form works. Then,
if I resave, design mode goes back on. This happens no matter whether it is
in Normal, Print layout, or Web view.

How do I get it to save without turning on the design mode?

Thanks in advance for you guidance.

I assume you got the option buttons from the Control Toolbox toolbar.
They're ActiveX controls, and Word considers them to be in the same
threat class as macros that could be viruses. When you have the macro
security level set to High, Word silently disables all macros and
ActiveX controls. The side effect of this is to switch the document
into design mode.

Even if you set your own security level to Medium (or Low, which isn't
recommended), you can't control the setting for anyone else to whom
you send the form. You could explain about the security level, but a
lot of folks will think (rightly) that it's too much trouble, and some
IT shops use group policy to prevent the level from being reduced.

The best advice is to avoid using anything from the Control Toolbox,
and stick exclusively to what's on the Forms toolbar. If you need to
include macros to handle things the native form fields can't handle
(for example, see
http://www.word.mvps.org/FAQs/TblsFldsFms/ExclusiveFmFldChbxs.htm), at
least you can use a digital certificate to sign macro code; as far as
I'm aware there's no way to sign ActiveX controls in a Word document.

 

[Steve]

Thanks for your help, Jay. What I'm hearing is that my form will hav to be
"clunky," because making my "yes/no" questions with mutually exclusive
checkboxes instead of radio buttons contains the unfortunate side-effect of
eliminating the user's ability to tab between fields. I'll just use regular
checkboxes and they will have to do slightly more work.

Thanks for clearing up the mystery.