[MJones]

That sounds good Suzanne, except that the tab key just makes a tab. How do
you get the tab to jump to the next field?

"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote:

As long as you tab into the text form fields, the text will be selected. I
think it would be much more sensible to protect the entire form and expect
users to know how to use it properly; I would find it extremely confusing
and frustrating to fill in a form that had form fields that couldn't be used
as such. (Actually, I've had this experience; I got a form that contained
form fields but was not protected, and there were elaborate instructions
telling users how to open the Form Field Options dialog and change the check
box from unchecked to checked!)

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

"MJones" wrote in message
news
Remember, there are 30 letters and some of the field entries could be
several
lines long so tables won't work.

Also, I find that locking makes a big difference. The dropdown box
doesn't
dropdown unless its locked and the text boxes can't be locked or then the
text in them won't go away when you click on them.

I got this idea from a website, I think an MVP. I'll try to find it if
that
will help and I'll get back to you.

Thanks for your help so far.

"CyberTaz" wrote:

If what you want is something like:

Text Form Field Here Drop-Down Form Field Here

I think you may be under a wrong impression about how Protection works
in
forms. You don't need Section Breaks for this.

The protection feature determines whether a user can change things about
the
document content/structure/formatting & can be regulated by the use of
Section Breaks. Text Form Fields & Drop-Down Form Fields function the
same
regardless of whether the section they're in is protected or not. It's
just
that the Protect Form (Lock) button needs to be turned on in order for
them
to function. IOW, there is a distinction between protecting the *Form* &
protecting the *Document* containing the form controls.

For better control I'd suggest using a table (2 column, 1 row) with the
Text
Form Field in one cell & the D-D Form Field in the second. Unless you
need
them for other reasons, though, Section Breaks aren't required unless
you
want people to change things (revise text, for example) in specified
areas
of the doc & its content *other than* using the form controls. When you
click the Lock button the controls will be active regardless of what
type
they are. The user just can't delete any content, change margins, move
tabs,
add content - other than in the provided controls.

--
Regards |:)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

"MJones" wrote in message
...
Hi Bob,

My basic problem is that I can't break in the middle of a line without
having a line break.

I'm trying to break in between the dropdown box and the replacement
text
boxes, and if that means in the middle of the line, then I need to do
that
so
they both work properly.

Basically, if this idea won't work, I'm looking for another strategy
to
accomplish this form letter request. It doesn't seem to be such a
wild
idea
to me and I'm hoping that someone would have run across it that can
help.

Thanks for trying,

Michele

"CyberTaz" wrote:

I believe your only problem is that you are trying to insert the
section
breaks at the *end* of a paragraph. The insertion point can't be
moved to
the right of the marker, so the break is inserted *before* the
marker,
forcing it down - you can't have a section break in the 'midst' of a
line
(without breaking the line). Put your insertion point at the
*beginning*
of
the line where you want the break to occur - IOW, always think of
secton
breaks as the *start* of a section, not as the *end* of one.

--
HTH |:)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

"MJones" wrote in message
...
Hi,

I'm creating about 30 standard letters. Each letter will have some
dropdown
boxes and some sections where you click and replace text; I'll call
these
the
'replacement text boxes'. The text that is replaced in the
replacement
text
boxes is stuff like 'manager's title' or 'employee improvement you
would
like
them to exhibit'. So users know what goes in the box, I've added
these
helpful comments as default text in the Text Form Field Options
window.

I've got it working with one aggrevation.

For the replacement text boxes, I do not protect/lock the sections.
That
way, when users click in the boxes, the helpful comment text that's
there,
is
replaced by the user's text. Good that works.

For the dropdown boxes, I need to protect/lock the sections so the
boxes
will drop down. I'm using continuous section breaks around these
boxes.
Good they work.

The aggrevation is that continuous section breaks force a new line
after
them. This is a problem when I have both a dropdown box and a
replacement
text box on the same line. Sometimes, there will be a return in
the
middle
of the line unless I can be crafty enough to word the text so the
break
is
at
the end of a line.

Does anyone have any better approach to accomplish the same thing?
I'm
using Word 2003, but my client that will be using the forms has
Word
2002.

I'd really appreciate any ideas you may have. I'm not really a VB
programmer, and altough I understand a little of it, I was hoping
not
to
have
to go that direction.

Thank you,

Michele