Field options

[Guest]

I'm drafting a form letter. I've already entered basic typeable fields.
I've encountered a few problems:

1. Is there any way to enable a field to hold more text. For example, I
want one of my fields to include an entire paragraph of text, but the field
accepts only a sentence or so of the text. Is there anyway to get around
this?

2. Also, I have two large paragraphs. I want the recipient to choose one
of the two for the body of the letter. But when one is chosen, I want the
other paragraph to disappear. Also, I need one part of the language in the
paragraph to be editable. But I also want to lock the document. Is there
any way to do this with fields... or otherwise?

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

I'm not clear how you've created this template. Is it a protected form? If
so, a text form field should be able to hold as much text as you like. But
there are other options: you can create "typeable fields" using the
MacroButton NoMacro method (see
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/TblsFldsFms/UsingMacroButton.htm); once you've
overwritten the MacroButton field (which is the way they work), you're
typing ordinary text, and you can add as much as you want.

As for the selection of one of two paragraphs, you might consider an
AutoTextList field; see
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/TblsFldsFms/AutoTextList.htm.

The advantage of using these two types of fields is that the document
doesn't have to be protected, so you can edit it using all of Word's
features, not the reduced set you get when you protect a document for forms.
You can use F11 to skip from one field to the next, but once you've typed
over a MacroButton field or selected an AutoText entry, the result is
ordinary text that won't be changed by updating fields.

If you do need a protected form, note that you can insert section breaks and
leave some sections unprotected; just be aware that, even in the unprotected
sections, many of Word's features will be unavailable.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

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