How to add protected text blocks to AutoText, etc.

[Becky]

How can I save protected fill-in-the-blanks blocks of text to either AutoText
or Quick Parts? For either of those, I must first select the text block in
order to save it there. However, once the text has been protected (so that
the user can tab from blank to blank to personalize that particular block of
text) I can no longer select it. I'm trying to create a gallery of text
blocks that will be inserted into various documents. The text blocks
themselves need to be forms that the user can go from blank to blank using
tab, quickly filling in the needed infomation. Would be very glad to know if
this can be done, and how. Thanks.

 

[Jay Freedman]

How can I save protected fill-in-the-blanks blocks of text to either AutoText
or Quick Parts? For either of those, I must first select the text block in
order to save it there. However, once the text has been protected (so that
the user can tab from blank to blank to personalize that particular block of
text) I can no longer select it. I'm trying to create a gallery of text
blocks that will be inserted into various documents. The text blocks
themselves need to be forms that the user can go from blank to blank using
tab, quickly filling in the needed infomation. Would be very glad to know if
this can be done, and how. Thanks.

You can save the text, including the form fields, as AutoText -- but you can't
save them with the protection turned on. You must first unprotect the document,
as you found.

You also can't insert AutoText into a document that's currently protected. You
must unprotect the document, insert the AutoText entry, and turn the protection
back on. If this is for the use of people other than yourself, or if you do it
frequently, you probably want a macro to simplify it.

If any of the fields already in the document contain user entries, and the
version of Word being used is 2002 (XP) or earlier, you need a macro to
reprotect the document without losing the entries -- see
http://www.word.mvps.org/FAQs/MacrosVBA/TurnFmFlfResetOff.htm. This is not a
problem in Word 2003 or 2007.

 

[Becky]

Thanks a lot for your reply, Jay. I'll have to think on this. There may be
another way to do what I'm trying to do. BTW, I am using Word 2007. I think I
understand about protection now. I haven't yet used Macros, but that's on my
list of things to learn. Thanks again.