Text form field in a table in a Header

[Kathy]

I've been perusing all of the questions about how to repeat text within a
document. I haven't spotted the answer to this, so forgive me if I'm making
someone repeat the information.

We have a template for SOPs, that's not currently a "form" template, but
just a template. In the header, is a table with rows and columns (with
borders) separating the title, number, and other information. There is a
section break. The 2nd section contains a similar table in the header. We
want the title and number to automatically fill in the cells of the 2nd
section header upon it being entered in the first section.

The text field button from the forms toolbar is dimmed while I'm in the
header, so I can't use that.

When I create a bookmark for the title and then another for the number (they
are in different cells of the table), and then place cross-references in the
second section header for the title and number, the repeat function on
partially works.

When the title updates in the 2nd section header, it updates with another
cell (cell in a cell of the table) with borders and with an "exactly" row
height which is wider than the original row. I can't set the fist page
header with an "exactly" height, because future SOP titles may be of
different lengths requiring more space.

I haven't been able to get the number to repeat itself in the 2nd section. ??

I don't want the bookmark to carry over the cell borders, if that's what it
is doing.

Suggestions?

Thank you so very much.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Your best bet is to insert a UserForm to collect the data and write it to
document properties or variables, then use DocProperty or DocVariable fields
to insert the data in the document.

 

[Kathy]

Suzanne,

Thank you for your response. I am sorry, but I am totally clueless to what
exactly your answer means and how to do this. Layman Details? Thank you.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

I was afraid you might say that! I can't go very far in helping you,
unfortunately. A UserForm is a custom dialog. It permits users to enter data
that can be used in various ways: either inserted directly in a document or
used as the basis for inserting other information or performing specific
actions. The chief advantage of UserForms over form fields is that they
don't require that the document be protected (forms protection disables many
of Word's most useful features).

For more on the general idea of UserForms, see "What Is a UserForm and why
should you care?" at http://www.speakeasy.org/~mtangard/userforms.html. The
article at http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Userforms/CreateAUserForm.htm gives
instructions for creating a very simple UserForm that writes to bookmarks,
though this is generally not considered the best technique. The article at
http://www.dragondrop.com/wordcoding/word011a.asp is much more complete (but
also more complex).

Once you decide whether a UserForm is the way you want to go, you may want
to post in microsoft.public.word.vba.userforms with specific questions about
how to achieve what you need.

 

[Kathy]

I followed the UserForm directions, but I obviously didn't do something
correctly..., but in the end I suppose this is not what I want.

Most of our computers are set at High Security. I feel like I need to stay
away from macros, at least any macros that won't run at this setting, or if
it causes the warning message to pop up (enable or disable macros...). With
all of the computer viruses out there, people are scared to "enable" the
macros. I want something easy and non-intimidating to the staff members. If
I could get something to run without a macro warning (i.e., the standard
wizard templates).

I can get the bookmark and cross-reference to work if I don't select the
whole cell as the bookmark, but that still leaves the high probability that
someone is going to delete the bookmark when typing in the new text, which of
course will make the cross-reference void. The same is true if I use an ASK
or FILLIN field. If the user decides to edit the name of the field, there is
a high probability that they will double-click on the field and type in the
new/corrected information while deleting the bookmark at the same time.

I'll take a look at the dragondrop...link you mentioned, although it's
probably above my head.

Thank you so very much for your time.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

You shouldn't get macro warnings provided that (a) the macros are in the
template, (b) the template is in the User Templates or Workgroup Templates
folder, and (c) "Trust all installed templates and add-ins" is enabled on
the Trusted Sources tab to Tools | Macro | Security.