New document doesn't work on other peoples computer

[John Eddy]

I've just finished creating a document using VBA and when
it came time to test it I found that 1. when people open
the document it seems to open with "design mode" on even
though I saved it with it off. This of course makes it so
I have to show all my users how to go in an shut it off
since they would have no reason to even have it on their
toolbar, most have no idea what I'm talking about. 2. When
design mode is shut off, my document still dosen't seem to
work. This document works great on my computer, why
doesn't it work at all on others? What could be the cause
of this and is there anyway to force "design mode" off
even if it's on so that the users can simply start using
the document without having to shut it off themselves?

Thanks!
John

 

[Charles Kenyon]

Generally there is nothing on the design mode toolbar that I want. If I
wanted that amount of complexity, I would use a userform instead.

Are you sure you are storing your macros and customizations in your document
rather than in normal.dot? Do you want this document to be a document
template instead of a document?
--
Charles Kenyon

Word New User FAQ & Web Directory:
<URL: http://www.addbalance.com/word/index.htm>

Intermediate User's Guide to Microsoft Word (supplemented version of
Microsoft's Legal Users' Guide)
<URL: http://www.addbalance.com/usersguide/index.htm>

Word Resources Page
<URL: http://www.addbalance.com/word/wordwebresources.htm>

See also the MVP FAQ: <URL: http://www.mvps.org/word/> which is awesome!
--------- --------- --------- --------- --------- ---------
This message is posted to a newsgroup. Please post replies
and questions to the newsgroup so that others can learn
from my ignorance and your wisdom.

 

[Margaret Aldis]

Hi John

Opening with design mode on is usually a symptom of having macros disabled -
if this is happening silently it would be due to having Security set to
High, and either the 'trusted' checkboxes not checked, or not having the
macro-bearing template/document in one of the trusted locations (templates
folders or user startup folder).

 

[John Eddy]

(Whoops! Hit send on accident!)
I believe this is the cause, the whole company has Word
set to high security. I couldn't save any macros in my
document for this reason.

Thanks for the insight, John

 

[John Eddy]

The generic userforms weren't adaquate for this document.
I needed to be able to have tools and end user text spaces
side by side in the document (yes, this is a template.)
Everything has been saved in the Document not in
Normal.dot. It would seem this problem is because of the
security settings in Word. I had to remove my macros and
replace them with VBA code because of the high security
settings..now it doesn't work at all.

-----Original Message-----
Generally there is nothing on the design mode toolbar that I want. If I
wanted that amount of complexity, I would use a userform instead.

Are you sure you are storing your macros and

customizations in your document

 

[Margaret Aldis]

Hi John

I don't have much experience with forms, but I think you'll find that if you
save your document (as a .dot or a .doc) in one of the user's templates
folders they will be able to create a new document based on it with the
macros functional. (I had a very quick check on this and it seems to work as
expected.)

Users would be able to get at it from the New task pane 'General
templates' - though there are other options if that's too fiddly.

 

[John Eddy]

With security set to high I can't save any macros in the
document without having the user prompted with a message
to accept my macro. Having users in the habit of manually
accepting macros isn't acceptable to my IS dept. Plus I
really needed the added benefit of VBA, I'm using pop-up
forms to greatly eliminate the amount of text on the
printed page. This document is filled with multiple choice
questions, by having the question appear on a form rather
than the document I only have to print the answer selected
and not all answers. Plus, I needed to be able to have
comments along with the users selections and placing page
breaks in between every line to seperate forms and user
editable cells is both tedious (I'd have well over a
hundred continous breaks) and lends itself to corruption
more easlily. And it just doesn't look as good, I'd like
to be able to keep all of my tables together and have them
break across pages while properly staying together. I
can't do that with forms as I have to constantly be
seperating tables with breaks to protect the forms.

 

[Word Heretic]

G'day "John Eddy" <[email protected]>,

you can digitally sign your templates to get around this.

With security set to high I can't save any macros in the
document without having the user prompted with a message
to accept my macro. Having users in the habit of manually
accepting macros isn't acceptable to my IS dept. Plus I
really needed the added benefit of VBA, I'm using pop-up
forms to greatly eliminate the amount of text on the
printed page. This document is filled with multiple choice
questions, by having the question appear on a form rather
than the document I only have to print the answer selected
and not all answers. Plus, I needed to be able to have
comments along with the users selections and placing page
breaks in between every line to seperate forms and user
editable cells is both tedious (I'd have well over a
hundred continous breaks) and lends itself to corruption
more easlily. And it just doesn't look as good, I'd like
to be able to keep all of my tables together and have them
break across pages while properly staying together. I
can't do that with forms as I have to constantly be
seperating tables with breaks to protect the forms.

Steve Hudson

Word Heretic, Sydney, Australia
Tricky stuff with Word or words for you.
Email: (e-mail address removed)
Products: http://www.geocities.com/word_heretic/products.html
Spellbooks: 728 pages of dump left and dropping...

The VBA Beginner's Spellbook: For all VBA users.

 

[Margaret Aldis]

Hi John -

Do users have to be able to reopen the documents after they've created and
saved them?

If not, my previous suggestion of storing the original in the templates
folder should work even with High Security, provided you have the 'trust
templates and add-ins' boxes checked.

In fact, you could possibly have the basis for a workaround here, even for
saved documents. If you set up subfolder(s) of one of the templates
directories to store the completed documents, they should reopen without
disabling macros. You could create shortcuts to that directory in the more
ordinary places people save documents, to enable them to find them easily.

I agree this is bizarre!

 

[Doug Robbins - Word MVP]

Hi John,

There is nothing Generic about userforms. They do not require the document
to be protected and I cannot think of a situation where you would need to
use controls from the vba toolbar in a document where you could not
accomplish the same thing with a userform.

From what I gather all of your messages in this thread, that is what you
should be using and if you do use a userform in the template, and the
template is placed in either the workgroup templates folder or the user
templates folder, macro security will not be a problem.

Please post any further questions or followup to the newsgroups for the
benefit of others who may be interested. Unsolicited questions forwarded
directly to me will only be answered on a consulting basis.

Hope this helps
Doug Robbins - Word MVP

 

[John Eddy]

Maybe I just don't fully know what everything is called
and I'm not getting my point across but there are two
different types of objects for me to use. Lets say I
wanted to have a drop down box. I can use a drop down form
field or a combo box. The Combo Box uses VBA and it seems
like I can do alot more with it. However, the control
itself prints when I print the document and I don't want
to see the controls in this document. The Drop down form
field looks nice but it doesn't seem like I have as much
control over whats going on. Not to mention the fact that
I _have_ to protect that section in order for the form to
work. Therefore I cannot have, for example, a row that has
2 cells. The one on the left has a spot for the user to
type a word. The one on the left has a drop down form
field for the user to select a word. It doesn't work. I
can't have both user form fields (protected so they will
work) and user editable fields (such as a cell) in the
same section. People have suggested various methods to get
around this but due to other demands on the document (page
breaks, tables staying together, etc) none of those other
methods would work and I had to abandon trying to do this
with form fields and created the document completely with
VBA controls.
The form fields are easier to use though so if there was a
way I would have preferred to do that.

Thanks,
John

 

[Word Heretic]

G'day "John Eddy" <[email protected]>,

office comes pre-packed with a file called SelfCert.exe. Run that to
create a free, but UNVERIFIED, Digital Signature.

WEll I had fully intended to do so but I'm having a great
deal of difficulty doing so. This is a small company and
we probably won't be ever creating another document like
this so the IS department purchasing a $400 digital
certificate for the company is out of the question.
Selfcert.exe is no good because it doesn't allow other
users to trust me as a user. There has to be some way for
me to do this for FREE. This is just such a simple thing I
can't believe I have to pay for a certificate so my
coworkers can use a document I've created. Either that or
they change security settings to medium and enable macros
every time...thats not good either.

Steve Hudson

Word Heretic, Sydney, Australia
Tricky stuff with Word or words for you.
Email: (e-mail address removed)
Products: http://www.geocities.com/word_heretic/products.html
Spellbooks: 728 pages of dump left and dropping...

The VBA Beginner's Spellbook: For all VBA users.

 

[Doug Robbins - Word MVP]

Hi John,

A userform is a third way to get a combobox, list box or any of the controls
available from the vba toolbar and they are not in the document and nor does
the document need to be protected to use them.

See the article "How to create a Userform" at:

http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/Userforms/CreateAUserForm.htm

Please post any further questions or followup to the newsgroups for the
benefit of others who may be interested. Unsolicited questions forwarded
directly to me will only be answered on a consulting basis.

Hope this helps
Doug Robbins - Word MVP

 

[John Eddy]

I read the article and the example using bookmarks seems
like it would have been a great way to create some of the
items in my document but I don't see how it's a work
around for this issue. I already don't have any macros in
my document, just userforms. On the document face there
are labels that act as buttons and each one opens a
userform, the end users makes a selection and the text is
placed into the document (again no macro simply a click
statement with each radio button that changes the text of
a label.) I understand what you mean by a third way but
the original discusssion on this thread was why it wasn't
working on other peoples computers due to the Macro
security settings, someone suggested I use the form fields
in Word instead of the userforms I'm already using to
eliminate the Macro warning, but that doesn't work with my
document due to the need to protect each section.

Thanks for your help,
John

 

[John Eddy]

Just wanted to say that it turns out that this indeed does
not work. The file is stored on the end users computer and
I've been able to set the directory that was set up for
this purpose be the workgroup templates folder and when I
call the doc from Word it works great. Unfortunately, when
I call it from within the portal Word doesn't recognize
that it came from the template directory and it still
gives me the macro warning. We've decided to just live
with it and click enable macros each time we use the
document. I'm not sure thats a great way to do it but it's
all we've got!

Thanks for everyones help!