Deperately seeking VBA and Control toolbox help

[Audrey]

I have asked many questions so far regarding this without even realizing what
I was asking...my appologies. What I've done is created a form using Control
toolbox with two text boxes for people to write in and 50 lines of A-E check
boxes for people to click in. I didn't use anything from the Forms toolbar
except 'protect'. I have macros security set to medium (although I've not
coded any macros - don't know how, which may be my problem) and when I send
this form through email, it will open and look pretty but won't allow any
interaction (no filling in names or checking boxes). If i double click any
of those fields, it brings me to VBA and I'm lost.

I tried to creat a form using just Forms toolbar and it works okay ( not
pretty) but even when I protect it, it allows editing ie. space bar and
return key.

I'm sure there MUST be a way to make my nice Control toolbox form work for
the end user, I just don't know what to do? You have all been so helpful
thus far and hopefully you can continue.

Audrey

 

[Jay Freedman]

In my experience, when people say there MUST be some way to do
something in Word but they just can't find it, the reason usually is
that there is NOT a way to do what they want in Word.

In this case, if you want to use anything from the Control Toolbox,
even just one field, then there are two equally unpalatable ways to
let others use your form:

- Buy a security certificate from a root authority, at the outrageous
price of $200 per year, and digitally sign the form. Each user will be
required to accept the certificate once, and thereafter it won't
matter what security level their copy of Word is set to.

- Instruct each recipient to set the security level to Medium, and
click the Enable button in the macro warning box every time they open
the form. Tell them that if they fail to do those things, the form
won't be usable.

If you make a form strictly with the Forms toolbar, and use protection
for forms, it shouldn't be possible to put the cursor anywhere except
in a form field. If that didn't happen, then maybe you selected the
wrong type of protection. Can you describe more exactly *where*
editing was possible?

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the
newsgroup so all may benefit.

 

[Audrey]

Good morning Jay, thank you for your help. I re-made my form using the Forms
toolbar and all is good except one thing; when I am inside the 'text form
field' that I made for peoples names, I can hit the enter key and the entire
form is altered. This is after I have protected it with the padlock. I
figured out how to set it (text form field) so only so many characters are
allowed to be entered but I can't seem to figure out how to prevent
re-spacing the document. So far there is no other place I can find where I
can edit except there.

Thank you much for you patients with my very novice Word abilities...

Audrey

 

[Jay Freedman]

That's a common complaint. Here's how to fix it:

- Unprotect the form.
- Create one or more tables, and put each text form field in a separate
cell. (The pencil tool on the Table toolbar lets you "draw" a table where
you want it.)
- While the cursor is inside the table, click Table > Autofit > Fixed Column
Width.
- Click Table > Table Properties. Select the Row tab. Check the box for
"Specify height". Enter a number (for example, 0.25" or 18 pt) and select
Exactly in the rightmost dropdown.
- If you don't want the border, go to Format > Borders & Shading > Borders
and select None (shortcut: press Ctrl+Alt+U).

If a user presses the Enter key, the cursor will disappear and nothing they
type after that will be visible. It's actually in the field, but hidden
below the bottom of the table cell.

There's an alternative, using a macro to make the Enter key behave like the
Tab key (http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=211219), but it has some
drawbacks -- not the least of which is that the presence of the macro puts
you right back into the macro security problem you had with the Control
Toolbox.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

 

[Jay Freedman]

In case it isn't clear, after setting up the table, you have to protect the
form again.

 

[Audrey]

Brilliant. Now it all seems to work fine, however, after I make all the
adjustments and re-protected the document and go to enter text into the
table(cell)/text field...even if I just move my cursor over that
space...formatting boxes appear around it (for lack of better terminology).
They are one little box at the bottom right corner of the cell and one box
with an x in it at the top left corner of the cell. They don't let me do
anything like they would in the un-protected format but they appear
non-the-less. Any suggestions?

Thank you again for all this, I may graduate past novice level here pretty
soon.
Audrey

 

[Jay Freedman]

Those two boxes appear whenever the mouse pointer is over the table.
Unfortunately, there's nothing you can do to turn them off permanently.
They'll disappear if you tab from one field to another, but they'll reappear
as soon as you move the mouse over the table again.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

 

[Audrey]

I kind of figured that...thank you so much for your help!!!