Open form with table gridlines hidden by default?

[Markus Ernst]

Hi

I make some forms, in which some elements are layed out with tables. I
save the template with "Table / Show gridlines" turned off - anyway when
the document is opened, the gridlines are visible again.

Can I set gridlines turned off in the document by default? (Word 2002)
Or, as a workaround, is there an option where the users of the templates
can set this as a default for their Words?

Thanks
Markus

 

[Jay Freedman]

Hi Markus,

Although you can include AutoNew and AutoOpen macros in the template that
would turn off the gridlines, it's much harder to be sure that the gridlines
are turned on again when the user closes your document or switches to
another document if that's what their initial setting was.

A better approach is to use Format > Borders & Shading to turn on all the
table borders in your template and set their color to white. That will hide
the gridlines if they're turned on, but won't affect any other documents.

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

 

[Terry Farrell]

There are 2 separate settings that affect the view of gridlines. There's the
obvious Table, View or Hide Gridlines. But also under Tools, Options, View
Tabs, there is a setting to show Text Boundaries. This also includes table
gridlines. Personally, I always have Text Boundaries displayed, so I will
always see table gridlines.

The only way you can control this is to add an AutoOpen macro that toggles
off both settings when the document is opened. However, I for one would be
very annoyed if my preference to work showing boundaries was forced off and
would probably refuse to read documents from that source again. then I'm a
maverick.

 

[Markus Ernst]

Thank you both for your valuable info. I encountered that Word does
actually take over the show/hide gridlines settings at the next startup;
I assume I was not aware of this because I changed settings when more
than one document was open, so the changes did not affect all open
instances of Word.

So, though Jay's trick of applying white borders works well, I don't
change them and leave the choice of the preferred view to the user.