Edit default text control text after locking and unlocking?

[MIke S]

I'm creating a form in Word with text control and rich text controls. I fixed
everything and started protection, then stopped protection. Now I can't edit
my defaults, I can only totally replace them. Is this expected behavior?

Also, are bullets allowed in rich text fields? When I created a new doc with
my template, bullets and such were greyed out.

 

[Jay Freedman]

I'm creating a form in Word with text control and rich text controls. I fixed
everything and started protection, then stopped protection. Now I can't edit
my defaults, I can only totally replace them. Is this expected behavior?

Also, are bullets allowed in rich text fields? When I created a new doc with
my template, bullets and such were greyed out.

Do not apply forms protection to a document in which all the "fields" are
content controls. First, it's unnecessary, and second, it's causing your
problems. It's needed only for "legacy" form fields.

If you want everything outside the content controls to be locked, select the
entire document (Ctrl+A) and click Developer > Group > Group.

Bullets and numbering definitely do function in rich text content controls -- if
you don't apply the wrong protection!

 

[MIke S]

Apologies, I marked your post as unhelpful because I screwed up my testing,
It does seem to have worked. Hopefully Microsoft will update their help
because it specifically tells you to use the old method.

i'm still having a problem where sometimes my text fields completely wipe
when the user starts entering data in them, and sometimes they simply insert
new text.

 

[MIke S]

Update: I re-did my text controls and now they correctly clear on adding new
data. Now the problem is that I also include checkboxes in my form and they
are not editable once I group the fields and save the template.

Are old controls and new controls not meant to be mixed?

 

[Jay Freedman]

I've never seen anything official from Microsoft that said they can't be
mixed, but the number of Bad Things I've seen convinced me that it's not a
good idea to do so.

If you need check boxes in content controls, visit
http://gregmaxey.mvps.org/Custom_CC_Checkboxes.htm for a really neat add-in.