Forms Development in Word

[Guest]

I have a general question about developing forms in Word.
1) I'm familiar with how to development Word forms using the Forms Toolbar
with text fields, checkboxes and dropdown boxes. I have developed basic Word
forms using Tables and the various items just mentioned.
2) Here is the situation: I had a student in class recently that wants to
take about 100 Word documents (1-2 pages each) and convert them to Word Forms
that will be filled out electronically. A typical document for them presently
is being filled out by the users with a pen. Man of the forms for example
have underlines, 1-5 numbers that have been circled, and a place to write
comments, etc.
3) Question: Has anyone been through a process like this, how long would one
expect the conversion to take, and things to watch out for? I know this is
very general but I have never been involved in a major undertaking like this
and I want the person to know what they are getting into.
4) It would be my expectation that this would be extremely time consuming
with this many documents and very challenging to get some forms looking just
the way one might want.

Any links or advice would be greatly appreciated !
Thanks!
Jugglertwo

 

[Cindy M -WordMVP-]

Hi =?Utf-8?B?SnVnZ2xlcnR3bw==?=,

The time involved would certainly depend on how exact the on-line format needs
to match the original document. If that doesn't really matter, just having the
text is important, then it would certainly be much easier/faster. One could, for
example, scan just the text, format it, insert the fields and basta.

If you need the exact layout, then the document would have to be scanned as a
graphic, inserted into the header/footer behind the text, and each form field
positioned exactly. This can drive you up the wall...

1) I'm familiar with how to development Word forms using the Forms Toolbar
with text fields, checkboxes and dropdown boxes. I have developed basic Word
forms using Tables and the various items just mentioned.
2) Here is the situation: I had a student in class recently that wants to
take about 100 Word documents (1-2 pages each) and convert them to Word Forms
that will be filled out electronically. A typical document for them presently
is being filled out by the users with a pen. Man of the forms for example
have underlines, 1-5 numbers that have been circled, and a place to write
comments, etc.
3) Question: Has anyone been through a process like this, how long would one
expect the conversion to take, and things to watch out for? I know this is
very general but I have never been involved in a major undertaking like this
and I want the person to know what they are getting into.
4) It would be my expectation that this would be extremely time consuming
with this many documents and very challenging to get some forms looking just
the way one might want.

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jun 8 2004)
http://www.word.mvps.org

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[Charles Kenyon]

Supplementing Cindy's comments...

What you are talking about is what Word calls an "online form." Have your
student check this in help. For more about online forms, follow the links at
http://addbalance.com/word/wordwebresources.htm#Forms or
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Customization/FillinTheBlanks.htm especially Dian
Chapman's series of articles. You may also want to look at
http://www.word.mvps.org/FAQs/TblsFldsFms/LinesInForms.htm.

Rather than numbers to circle, you may want to use mutually exclusive
checkboxes.

Hope this helps,
--

Charles Kenyon

Word New User FAQ & Web Directory: http://addbalance.com/word

Intermediate User's Guide to Microsoft Word (supplemented version of
Microsoft's Legal Users' Guide) http://addbalance.com/usersguide


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