Hi Pinky,

The top portion is locked for a little of both reasons, there is information
that I do not want edited, and it also makes it easier for the person who is
filling out the form.

Any ideas?

Well, for the user-friendly part you could certainly use a UserForm (macro) to gather
the information. Protecting it, though...

The only other approach that comes to mind would be to have this top part in a
separate file, linked in as a document object. You could probably do this using the
same approach: VBA displays a form for the user to type the information. It creates a
new document from the template for the top section, dumps in the information, saves
it with a password and closes it, then links this new document into the "main"
document as an object (insert or modify a LINK field).

If the user tries double-clicking to edit the original object, a prompt for the
password will be displayed, so the user can't get into it to make any changes. He can
only use the VBA tool to change those areas where he's allowed to make changes.

Now on the following pages, that I will be entering photos and text, are
still showing that the document is locked. I can still insert photos and text
into the tables but I cannot use the "Auto Shapes" option in MS Word.

Is this option not available on section 2 when a document is locked for
section 1 only?
How can I set this document up and still protect page 1 and still allow for
use of "AutoShapes" etc... on the following pages.

You cannot. The Drawing layer and Drawing tools are locked out in any document
with activated protection.

Is the top section locked for convenience (so that the user can quickly fill out
the information), or for security reasons?

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jun 8 2004)
http://www.word.mvps.org

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