MS- Word = Forms?

[Guest]

I have created an 11 page form using WORD2003 , for my employer. There are
aprox. 10% check boxes , and 90% text areas for entering information. I have
set "limits" in the text areas, to prevent the overly zelous writers from
changing the
form by typing to such an extent that it moves all the following pages
downward.
The only problem I am facing now, is to eliminate the use of the "ENTER"
key, to
prevent some of the people from "SHIFTING" the entire form DOWNWARD.
Is there an easy way to keep ALL of the typed "fill-in" information
contained - so
that the use of the "ENTER" key will not move the following lines DOWNWARD?
Limiting the number of "characters" seems to have worked - EXCEPT , the
"ENTER" will will allow them to SHIFT the form DOWNWARD, which I would
like to prevent. I have tried this on my password protected version of the
form.
Thank you for ANY HELP - on this !

 

[Jay Freedman]

There are two different solutions to this problem. Choose one or the other:

- Insert a table and size/position the cells so there is at most one form
field per cell. You can use Format > Borders & Shading to change the table
borders to white so they aren't visible (even if the user turns on
gridlines). Set the Table > AutoFit item to "Fixed column width". In Table >
Table Properties, set the row height to an Exact value. When the user
presses Enter in a form field in this form, the extra text will "disappear"
below the bottom of the cell. Most users are savvy enough (we hope) to stop
pressing Enter at that point. If you process the data into a database,
though, the extra text (including the paragraph marks) is still in the
field -- this may or may not be desirable.

- Use the macros at http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=187985 to make the
Enter key act like the Tab key whenever the form is active. When the user
presses Enter in this form, the cursor simply moves to the next field.
Beware, though, that users with the security level set to High won't run the
macros and won't be prevented from causing the problem.