Custom Form - Printing question

[Guest]

I have a custom form that I do not want the message field as part of the
custom form. When I go in and delete the field off my form and publish the
form, it is gone. However when I go into print preview it shows the message
field. In that print preview and message field it has my auto signature and
it has it replicated about 10 times. So I go back into the form design, add
the message field back, republish the form. I open it up, go into options and
select no auto signature, erase the 10 auto signatures in the message field
and republish. I go back into pull up the form and again the auto signatures
are still there with about 10 stacked one on top of the other and this is
even after I have the auto signatures option set to off. Can someone help me.

 

[Guest]

Thanks Hollis for the response. I checked the exchange cached mode and it is
actually off for me. I dont know how to clear out the cache either.

The form is being published in the Personal Forms Library and I only have 2
other forms in this Library. I am a MS exchange outlook end user and have no
access to the exchange server directly.

The other part I dont understand is your statement and maybe you could
elaborate:

 

[Hollis Paul]

However when I go into print preview it shows the message
field. In that print preview and message field it has my auto signature and
it has it replicated about 10 times.

It sounds like you are using Outlook/Exchange in cached mode. You need to
clear out the cache after you publish the form, but before you open a new
instance of the form.

It would be a good thing if you tell us how/where you publish the form. I
always advise using "publish as", publish to either the Organizational Forms
Library, or to the Personal forms library and always include the version
number in the name of the form--myform_vernnn. Putting the version number in
the name means that you have a lot of forms in the library, which you
eventually have to clear out; and, when you are done with development, you
have to run a utility to change the messageclass field to the name of the
final form in all the messages you want to have displayed by the form.

 

[Guest]

Thank you for all your time on this Hollis. Once I learned how to clear out
the cache with the .Dat file. It made everything all good.

 

[Hollis Paul]

Thanks Hollis for the response. I checked the exchange cached mode and it is
actually off for me. I dont know how to clear out the cache either.

This article should tell you how to do that.

How the Custom Forms Cache in Microsoft Outlook Works 5/10/2006
http://www.outlookcode.com/d/formscache.htm - 21 KB

The form is being published in the Personal Forms Library and I only have 2
other forms in this Library. I am a MS exchange outlook end user and have no
access to the exchange server directly.

If you want other people to use the custom form, then it should be published to
the organizational forms library in the Exchange Server. You will have to have
the Exchange Administrator give you permissions to publish there. Usually, in
a large organization, your supervisor has to make arrangements with the IT
department for this.

When you put the version number in the published form name, AND you are a
prudent developer who publishes with each small development step, then you get
a large number of versions of the form published. For instance, the last
custom form I developed now has the name of SharePointTips_R, and I have all
the previous versions of the form still in the Org Forms Library. At a
minimum, you want to save 3 generations of the form as backup. And you want to
save them to a location other than you current mailbox.

Usually, when you are done with the development of a form, like my _R, you have
a lot of existing items, with another name, that you want to display using the
new form. This is when you use a utility to change the MessageClass field to
the name of the new, custom form. See the following article for details:

How to make a Microsoft Outlook custom form the default 5/10/2006
How to make a new Microsoft Outlook form the default for a folder (or the
overall default) and convert existing items
http://www.outlookcode.com/d/newdefaultform.htm - 25 KB