Word 2003 - Protected form will not allow hyperlink to be clicked

[UPSPaul]

Hello all...

I use Word 2003 at my office and I have a form that needs to be protected.
At the bottom of the form is hyperlink that when clicked on (using CTRL +
left click) will open an email already populated with the proper email
addresses and subject line. The link works fine until the document is
protected.

I have unchecked the box in the protection setting that is supposed to allow
hyperlinks to be followed, but when the hyperlink is clicked on, the cursor
jumps to the first field of the form instead of opening up the email message.

Does anyone know a way around this?

Thanks!

Paul

 

[Jay Freedman]

See http://www.word.mvps.org/FAQs/TblsFldsFms/HLinksInForms.htm.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

 

[Chopson]

If your Hyperlink is located at the bottom of the page then you will need to
create two sections in your document.
Protecting the first section and UN-protect the second section.

1. Unprotect your document
2. Place cursor on location above your Hyperlink command
Would help to show your hidden control characters by clicking on the
(Show/Hide) icon located in the command tray.
3. Click on INSERT\BREAK\CONTINUOUS options from command tray.

Note if you have something below your Hyperlink command and wish to protect
that information, move your
courser below the Hyperlink command but above the protected data.

4. Click on INSERT\BREAK\CONTINUOUS options from command tray.
5. Click on TOOLS\PROTECT DOCUMENT
6. Select under EDITING RESTRICTIONS
A. Allow only this type of editing in the document.
B. Pick option: Filing in forms.
7. Click Select section link
8. Now you specify which section to un-protect by un-clicking the section
9. Click OK
10. Click "YES, Start enforcing Protection
11. Add password for document protection
12. Remember to enter a Note for your customers to remind them to click on
your Hyperlink.

 

[UPSPaul]

Thanks Jay, for the article, it was helpful. Since I want an email document
to open up instead of a web page, I made the macro so it looks like this:

{MacroButton"OpenEmail"{HYPERLINK"mailto:[email protected]"}}

When I press ALT+F9 to hide the field codes, the email still will not open.
Should this work the way I have it set up?

Thanks again!

Paul

 

[Chopson]

If my instructions helped how did you attached the doc to email using your
Hyperlink?

 

[Jay Freedman]

When you set this up, did you change the name of the macro from FollowLink
to OpenEmail? The word after MacroButton must match the name of the macro in
order to call the macro -- otherwise nothing will happen.

I also recommend using the AutoExec macro in that article to set
Options.ButtonFieldClicks = 1. If you don't the first click of a
double-click will bounce the cursor from the MacroButton into the next form
field, and the second part of the double-click probably won't register.

 

[UPSPaul]

Yes, I did change the name of the macro to OpenEmail. Apologies....I meant to
include that in my post.

 

[Jay Freedman]

To diagnose what's happening:

In the VBA editor, click in the line "Selection.Hyperlinks(1).Follow" and
press F9 to set a breakpoint. Then go back to the document and click the
MacroButton field.

If the VBA editor doesn't pop up with the line highlighted, then you know
that for some reason the macro isn't being called. That might be because of
an incorrectly created field (although I tried the one you showed and it
worked), or a misspelling of the name of the macro in one place or the
other, or possibly because macros are disabled by the setting in Tools >
Macro > Security.

If the editor does appear with the breakpointed line highlighted, press F8
to execute the line. It should open your default email program's message
editor.

I admit I haven't tried this in the situation where Outlook is the mail
program and it uses Word as the email editor -- I never use Word as an email
editor because MS never really got it to work right.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

 

[Jennifer]

I have followed the instructions on this site and now an unable to reprotect
my document. Any ideas?

Thanks,
Jen

 

[Jay Freedman]

"Unable" in what way? Is the Protect Document command grayed out/disabled?
Do you get any message?

There's nothing in the article that should cause protection to be disabled.
Have you added anything else to the document besides the MacroButton field?

 

[Jennifer]

I saved, closed out of Word completely, and when I reopened, the "3. Yes,
enable protection." option was no longer grayed out. So the below issues is
no longer an issue. Now, I'm on to the next problem. My file seems to work
perfectly. However, I have tested it with a couple other employees in my
office and the links don't work for them. When they double click, it does
nothing. We looked on the macro menu of their computer and it appears the
FollowLink macro is not transferring with the file. Any ideas?

Thanks,
Jen

 

[Jay Freedman]

If you saved the macro in the template that's used as the base of the document,
then no, the macro won't transfer with the document.

You can do this any of several ways:

- Put the macro into the document itself. Then it will travel with the document.
The downside is that Word will assume that any macro in a document is possibly a
virus. You'd have to tell users to set their security level (Tools > Macro >
Security) to Medium, and enable the macros whenever they open the document.

- Send out the template instead of a document based on it. Have the users open
it the same way they would open and use the document.

- Send both the template and the document, with instructions to put the template
into the User Templates folder (whose location can be found in the Tools >
Options > File Locations dialog).