Spell-checking text entered in MS Word forms?

[Steve Cavanaugh]

Word Form fields were seriously flawed up to version 2000, and may still
be.  I stopped using them when I spent a lot of time developing a form,
then discovered that unlocking and re-locking the form could clear the
data already entered.  Worse, if you build the form and save as a
template, then populate many such forms based on that template, if you
unlock the template and relock it, you can erase all of the data in
EVERY form based on that one.  MS assured me this was a design feature
(right) and that the form fields were working as designed.  Better to
stick with a table.


Steve Cavanaugh
Sr. Technical Writer
NAT Seattle Inc.

-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+scavanaugh=nat-seattle.com at lists.techwr-l.com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+scavanaugh=nat-seattle.com at lists.techwr-l.com]
On Behalf Of DonaLuisa
Sent: Monday, July 02, 2007 12:25 PM
To: TECHWR-L
Subject: Spell-checking text entered in MS Word forms?

I created what I thought might be a nifty little MS Word template
(Windows XP Wod 2003) using the Forms toolbar. One item has a dropdown
selection. I protected the form using the padlock icon.

When users in my organization enter text into the form fields, they are
unable to spell-check their text, or edit what they have entered. So
far, I've instructed them to unprotect the form to make changes. Now I'm
probably going to remove the form functionality, and simply enter text
fields into a *.dot file. I'll turn the dropdown into a checkbox field.

But am I missing something? Is there a way users can use spell-check and
edi entries in a protected form?
-Donna
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