Why do people do this??? *smaking head on keyboard*

Some brilliant person at my company decided to create a form in Excel, which
is fine if you just want to print it out so others can fill it out by pen but
guess what, now they want to be able to fill it out on their computers and
they want yours truly to convert this Excel spreadsheet to a Word Form
Template.

I'm not thinking there's much I can do short of retyping the whole thing
into Word but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that there's a way of converting
this Excel sheet into a Word document. Is there? Or does anyone have any
cleaver ideas on how I might get this done in a quicker way than what I'm
thinking?

Thanks in advance!
-- Dax

In article <B71D4A3A-241F-4365-98B7-(E-Mail Removed)>,
(E-Mail Removed) says...
> Why do people do this??? *smaking head on keyboard*
>
> Some brilliant person at my company decided to create a form in Excel, which
> is fine if you just want to print it out so others can fill it out by pen but
> guess what, now they want to be able to fill it out on their computers and
> they want yours truly to convert this Excel spreadsheet to a Word Form
> Template.
>

There's absolutely no reason why you cannot create such a form entirely
in Excel. No need to convert to Word.

--
Peter Aitken
Author, MS Word for Medical and Technical Writers
www.tech-word.com

Umm. I'm not sure how to do that. I'd like there to be fields that users
can fill out and I'd like to be able to lock the form so users couldn't type
over or change any of the text throughout the form. In other words I'd like
all the functionality that's available if it were created as a Word Form in
the first place. Is there really a way in excel to do all that? Can you
show me where?

"Peter A" wrote:

> In article <B71D4A3A-241F-4365-98B7-(E-Mail Removed)>,
> (E-Mail Removed) says...
> > Why do people do this??? *smaking head on keyboard*
> >
> > Some brilliant person at my company decided to create a form in Excel, which
> > is fine if you just want to print it out so others can fill it out by pen but
> > guess what, now they want to be able to fill it out on their computers and
> > they want yours truly to convert this Excel spreadsheet to a Word Form
> > Template.
> >
>
> There's absolutely no reason why you cannot create such a form entirely
> in Excel. No need to convert to Word.
>
> --
> Peter Aitken
> Author, MS Word for Medical and Technical Writers
> www.tech-word.com
>

On Apr 3, 3:27 pm, Dax Arroway <DaxArro...@discussions.microsoft.com>
wrote:
> Umm. I'm not sure how to do that. I'd like there to be fields that users
> can fill out and I'd like to be able to lock the form so users couldn't type
> over or change any of the text throughout the form. In other words I'd like
> all the functionality that's available if it were created as a Word Form in
> the first place. Is there really a way in excel to do all that? Can you
> show me where?
>
>
>
>
>
> "Peter A" wrote:
> > In article <B71D4A3A-241F-4365-98B7-B24DAD6A6...@microsoft.com>,
> > DaxArro...@discussions.microsoft.com says...
> > > Why do people do this??? *smaking head on keyboard*
>
> > > Some brilliant person at my company decided to create a form in Excel, which
> > > is fine if you just want to print it out so others can fill it out by pen but
> > > guess what, now they want to be able to fill it out on their computers and
> > > they want yours truly to convert this Excel spreadsheet to a Word Form
> > > Template.
>
> > There's absolutely no reason why you cannot create such a form entirely
> > in Excel. No need to convert to Word.
>
> > --
> > Peter Aitken
> > Author, MS Word for Medical and Technical Writers
> >www.tech-word.com

Hmmmm, I dont know either, but if Peter ca, ill be over this post
too

In article <D3AC5187-AEA5-4470-BBE5-(E-Mail Removed)>,
(E-Mail Removed) says...
> Subject: Re: Convert Excel Form into Word Form
> From: =?Utf-8?B?RGF4IEFycm93YXk=?= <(E-Mail Removed)>
> Newsgroups: microsoft.public.word.docmanagement
>
> Umm. I'm not sure how to do that. I'd like there to be fields that users
> can fill out and I'd like to be able to lock the form so users couldn't type
> over or change any of the text throughout the form. In other words I'd like
> all the functionality that's available if it were created as a Word Form in
> the first place. Is there really a way in excel to do all that? Can you
> show me where?
>
>

There are two parts to this. You'll have some cells where the user can
enter info and other cells that the user should not be able to change.

For the cells where the user can enter info, use the Protection tab of
the Cell Formatting dialog (Ctrl+1, that's a one not an el) to turn off
the locked option. Then, use the Protection command on the Tools menu to
enable either worksheet or workbook protection depending on your needs.

This is a typical dumb Microsoft way of doing things - cells are locked
by default but being locked does not make any difference until
protection is turned on! You can assign a protection password, probably
a good idea.

I like to format locked and unlocked cells differently (background
shading) so it's clear to the user where he can enter info.

These instructions are for Excel 2003 but I am sure that 2007 has the
same features.


--
Peter Aitken
Author, MS Word for Medical and Technical Writers
www.tech-word.com

Which do you think would be faster, selecting 17,000,000,000 cells in Excel
2007 (or around 16,000,000 in versions prior to Excel 2007) and setting the
"Locked" property that will take effect when the sheet is protected or
selecting a few cells, which is usually under 100 cells, and deselecting the
"Locked" property that will take effect when the sheet is protected? ;-)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP
https://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/Melton
What is a Microsoft MVP? http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/gp/mvpfaqs

Guides for the Office 2007 Interface:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/tr...295841033.aspx

"Peter A" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...

> This is a typical dumb Microsoft way of doing things - cells are locked
> by default but being locked does not make any difference until
> protection is turned on!

Sorry for the second reply, I intended to add more previously. [Inline]

"Peter A" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> Then, use the Protection command on the Tools menu to
> enable either worksheet or workbook protection depending on your needs.

Only Protect Sheet applies to locked cells. The Protect Workbook option is
for protecting the structure of the workbook. It doesn't apply to protecting
all sheets of the workbook as one might think.
..
>
> I like to format locked and unlocked cells differently (background
> shading) so it's clear to the user where he can enter info.

Another handy option is to turn off the ability to select locked cells. Then
users can press Tab or Enter to navigate to only those cells that can be
modified.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP
https://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/Melton
What is a Microsoft MVP? http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/gp/mvpfaqs

Guides for the Office 2007 Interface:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/tr...295841033.aspx