Convert existing Word document to a Form

[Daniil]

Hi, I have Office 2003 running on XP home edition.

I have a Word document (Real Estate Purchase Agreement)
which is very tightly typed, with numerous places to fill
in text/numbers. How do I convert this existing file to a
form where a user could tab from one fillable field to
another NOT AFFECTING the rest of the text?

In other words, it is so tightly typed, if I type a letter
it shifts entire paragraph below.

I tried INSERT - FIELD MAIL MERGE, etc. But it did not do
anything for me. Same story with FORMS TOOLBAR - it
creates a text field but once I type something in, it
messes the format of the rest of the page.

Please help,

Thanks,

Daniil

 

[Peter Jamieson]

Without using VBA, the only way I can imagine doing this is to put all the
affected text and form fields into a table - consisting of a single cell,
where each line is a new paragraph. Then go to Table|Table
Properties|Cell||Cell|Options and check "Fit text".

The trouble with this is that the result will probably be very ugly. For one
thing, each line/cell will be adjusted differently. To achieve a
better-looking result I think you would have to ditch the table idea and use
VBA to adjust the text properties of the entire block of text so that every
line fitted without wrapping.

If you cannot move the fixed text /at all/ (e.g if you are printing onto a
pre-printed form with spaces), neother of those will work. To use the table
approach you would probably have to create a table with a complex layout
where each space in the form corresponded to one cell, and set the
properties of each of those cells. Not my idea of a stable approach though.
You shoud be able to use a macro approach but it would be more complicated.

As an aside, if I were a customer I might be quite put off by an information
form that presented so much info. to me in such a tight format.

 

[Guest]

Thans very much for replying!

What I ended up doing was to superimpose text-boxes with
the properties set to "no fill" and "no line" over the
places on the form where applicant input was needed. A
bit clumsy, but it works. You don't see these boxes on
the screen AND in print, but once you click on a field to
be filled in, you are automatically inside the box and the
text and underscore lines (indicating fields to be filled
in) are unaffected.

If it helps others, I will be glad.

Thanks,

Daniil

 

[Peter Jamieson]

Thanks for the feedback - I had a suspicion that the text-box approach would
make it hard to get the layout right, so it's useful to know that you
succeeded.