Word 2007 Forms - Plain Text Control does not accept unless you Ta

[Brett]

I am having an issue where I have created a form in Word 2007. It is a
combination of Radio boxes, ActiveX Text Box controls, and Word 2007 Plain
Text Controls.

However, the issue that I'm having is that when I restrict the document for
editing, only allowing "Filling in forms", I've found that when I open the
document, it doesn't let me type in the Word 2007 Plain Text Controls. The
only way to do so is to tab from just before the control.

Has anyone seen this before? If so, is there some way to resolve it?

 

[Jay Freedman]

Restricted editing for "Filling in forms" is meant for forms built with
"form fields" (the top row of the Legacy Controls button's dropdown). It
wreaks havoc with all other kinds of controls and should not be used with
them.

I would also recommend against using ActiveX controls for anything (see the
"Appropriateness for the Task" section of
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa140269(office.10).aspx). Replace
the ActiveX text box controls with either Rich Text or Plain Text content
controls, and replace the radio buttons (I assume you used ActiveX for
these, too) with dropdown content controls.

To get the same protection effect as "Filling in forms", select everything,
click the Group button next to the content controls on the ribbon, and
choose Group.

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

 

[Brett]

I will give that a try. Is there another way to do radio buttons without
activex controls? This is form a performance review form where it would
really look better as radio buttons.

 

[Brett]

Also... one more thing... how does grouping the items lock people out from
editing the word document? I don't understand how this is analgous to
"Filling out forms". Am I missing something?

 

[Jay Freedman]

Greg Maxey has a content-control-based system for making check boxes and
radio buttons at http://gregmaxey.mvps.org/Custom_CC_Checkboxes.htm.

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

 

[Jay Freedman]

I think Microsoft picked the wrong name for that feature, but it's really
quite nice, especially compared to legacy forms protection.

If you select two or more content controls plus some text that's outside the
controls (up to the entire document) and "group" the selection, any attempt
to edit or reformat the non-control text in that group is refused. An
attempt to edit gets a message in the status bar, but an attempt to apply
formatting just does nothing.

Grouping doesn't disable features (spell-checking, graphics editing, etc.)
in unprotected areas the way forms protection does.