comparing check box results in forms

[Guest]

I'm setting up a multi-choice exam paper as a form with check boxes to select
the answers. I want to mark and correct the paper by comparing the answers
with a master copy. The standard compare and merge feature doesn't recognise
the selection of different check boxes.

Is there a way of comparing them or alternatively another method of creating
a form where access is restricted to fields which can be compared?

 

[Doug Robbins - Word MVP]

To get this foolproof, is probably not a trivial exercise. For starters,
you probably need to make your form so that only one of the possible
checkboxes for each answer can be checked. For that, see the article
"Making groups of Check Box Form Fields mutually exclusive (so that they
behave like radio buttons)" at:

http://www.word.mvps.org/FAQs/TblsFldsFms/ExclusiveFmFldChbxs.htm

Then, I believe that the best way to mark the papers will be through the use
of a macro, that accesses the .Result of a candidate name field to get the
name of the person who submitted the paper and then interates through each
of the check boxes for each question to get a value for the checked box and
compares that with the correct value for that question.

It is certainly doable, but as mentioned, there will be a bit of programming
involved.


--
Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the quick response. This is new territory for me and it does sound
complex. Also the limitations on making the check box form fields mutually
exclusive aren't attractive. After posting the question, I also tried using a
single character text field. Provided the student uses the character
specified and used in the master, the compare and merge facility will
highlight and correct any incorrect answers. Also it works in a table format.
The marks will still have to added manually but that is less of a problem. To
make it more foolproof, is there an easy way of forcing a particular
character either by not accepting the wrong character or automatically
entering the correct one irrespective of the character used?

 

[Doug Robbins - Word MVP]

The best thing may be to use a DropDown FormField that contains just the
available choices.

--
Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP