text form field in document (based on template)

[Dan]

Scenerio: I have a template which contains a few text form fields. I
have placed this template on the network to be used as a workgroup
template. All is well with creating new documents based on the
template. However, it has been brought to my attention that the
properties of a text form field need to be changed. I have
since fixed it on the template, but I cannot get the changes to apply
to existing documents which were already created from the template. It
doesn't seem reasonable to me that I should have to tell people they
need to create a new doc and copy/paste their data into it. I've tried
using Tools > Templates and add-ins, and checking the box for
automatically updating the document's styles...but this does not seem
to affect text form fields. Any tips on this? Thanks in advance for
looking!

 

[Jay Freedman]

Scenerio: I have a template which contains a few text form fields. I
have placed this template on the network to be used as a workgroup
template. All is well with creating new documents based on the
template. However, it has been brought to my attention that the
properties of a text form field need to be changed. I have
since fixed it on the template, but I cannot get the changes to apply
to existing documents which were already created from the template. It
doesn't seem reasonable to me that I should have to tell people they
need to create a new doc and copy/paste their data into it. I've tried
using Tools > Templates and add-ins, and checking the box for
automatically updating the document's styles...but this does not seem
to affect text form fields. Any tips on this? Thanks in advance for
looking!

Form field properties have no relation to styles. That's why trying to
use the "Automatically update document styles" option has no effect.

Once you create a document from the template, there's no way to make
changes in the template and transfer them to the document. You'll need
to make the changes in the fields in each existing document. I hope
you caught the problem before there are huge numbers of documents.

To make the change, you'll have to unprotect the document first and
reprotect it again afterward. In order to reprotect without losing the
data, see
http://www.word.mvps.org/FAQs/MacrosVBA/TurnFmFlfResetOff.htm.

 

[Dan]

darn, was hoping that wasn't the case but not a huge deal...I did
manage to catch this before it was widespread (it's being tested by a
select few before company wide rollout). I tried the code from the link
you suggested and it works great...we'll just use that on the few docs
that were already created. Thanks again!