Fill in the Blanks form not completely locking

[cmb]

I am trying to modify a document so that people have the option of filling
the blanks in on their computer, rather than by hand. I read the articles
advised on this newsgroup and followed Chapman's instructions with partial
success. I inserted text form fields with the field shading removed and
maximum length set to the number of characters I wished to allow entered. I
also, created "behind text" lines using the draw tools. After I lock the
form I am able to tab from field to field and the form is locked from user
changes. So far so good. But then I tried to enter data into the form
fields and the text to the right of the field scoots over to the left,
sometimes when I have only entered a single number. I then tried to replace
one of the blank fields with a table composed of a single row and column and
insert a form field into that. I could not find a way to add the table
without causing the rest of the text on the line to move (or even disappear)
so never even got so far as locking the form and testing that alternative.

What is the easiest solution?

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

It depends on what sort of form it is. If it's the sort of thing you think
of when you hear the word "form" (a number of short descriptive bits of
text, such as Name, and then a line for the name to be entered, another pair
for Address, etc.), then you can probably construct the whole thing as a
table. Put the static bits (Name, Address, etc.) in separate cells from the
form fields where these data will be entered. Turn off auto resizing and set
an exact height for the row and preferred widths for the columns.

If the form is continuous text with just a few fillin spots here and there,
you might be better off with a different approach. One approach I have used
is to insert MacroButton NoMacro fields (as described at
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/TblsFldsFms/UsingMacroButton.htm) where the
display text is just a string of underlines of appropriate length. When
users click on the underlines, the entire field is selected, so anything
they type replaces the underlines, resulting in continuous ordinary text,
but if you print out the form, you have underlined spaces in which users can
handwrite the data. The only limitation to this approach is that a
MacroButton field (like any field) cannot wrap to another line, so it's
suitable only for applications where the data entry areas are one line or
less in length. Note that if you use fields in this way and they are widely
separated in the document, users can use F11 to jump to the next field.

 

[cmb]

I guess my form is actually somewhere in between the two you describe
(actually an emergency form to be filled out for kids athletics). It has a
section with 3 lines for a long answer to one of the questions (describe
medical conditions...) and it has other short sections for things like name,
age, birthdate, phone, address, etc. But even the short answer part is not
spaced like a table: one line may have 2 pieces of data to enter and the line
below may have 4 since the length of the text anticipated varies quite a bit.
Also, I am not at liberty to redesign the document to lay it out
differently, at least not at this point. So it seems that the 2nd approach
you mention (MacroButton) may be the one to try, assuming that I can use 3
macrobutton fields to allow input on the 3 lines. Does this seem reasonable?

Just curious, when would anyone use the locked form feature in Word if it
doesn't really lock the form?

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

When you use a table, you can make each row different (different number and
width of columns), but it does sound as if the MacroButton fields might work
better for you. I think you are misinterpreting the meaning of "lock." This
has only to do with where data entry is permitted, not the format of the
document. When you protect a form, you are preventing users from changing
any of the static text in the document; all they can do is enter answers in
the places you've provided for them. You can, to some extent, restrict the
kind of answers they can enter (only numbers, only dates, only a certain
number of characters), and you can, to some extent, limit the amount of
space they have in which to do so (by using table cells of fixed
dimensions), but forms protection by itself is not intended to preserve
formatting; in fact, in some types of forms (contracts, for example), you
want the data entered to be able to reflow and wrap naturally to provide the
natural appearance of continuous text.

 

[cmb]

Well, I tried the MacroButton approach and did not like 2 things: First of
all, I still had the same problem with the text describing the next field to
be entered on the line moved over to the left. The second thing was that a
user could inadvertently alter the content of the document as nothing is
locked in this approach. Since this document will be made available to
untrained users, both of these results won't do. Guess I will try the other
way now. I have considered using the existing blank document as a background
picture over which the parents can just enter whatever they want wherever
they want, but it is not as nice as being able to tab from field to field.

 

[cmb]

Re: Tables seem to be working