[Jay Freedman]

The shading applied by the macro is exactly the same as the shading you
could apply from the Borders and Shading dialog. It will print. There is no
need to do anything else.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP FAQ: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

Aliza Berger-Cooper wrote:
Jay,

Thanks so much for your helpful answer.

I have a followup question.

I want the user to be able to print the form (partially completed)
with the blank fields shaded and the filled fields unshaded
(accomplished as per your instructions).
The Microsoft site says this:

To add shading to a printed form, select the form field you want to
emphasize, and then click Borders and Shading (Format menu). On the
Shading tab, select the shading options you want.

Will this work in conjunction with your advice?

TIA again.

Aliza in Jerusalem



Jay Freedman wrote:

For text form fields, you can put this macro in the form
template(change the 26-Jan-10

For text form fields, you can put this macro in the form template
(change the colors as desired):

Sub FormExit()
Dim fld As FormField
ActiveDocument.Unprotect
If Selection.Bookmarks.Count 0 Then
Set fld = ActiveDocument.FormFields( _
Selection.Bookmarks( _
Selection.Bookmarks.Count).Name)
End If
If Trim(fld.Result) = "" Then
fld.Range.Shading _
.BackgroundPatternColor = wdColorYellow
Else
fld.Range.Shading _
.BackgroundPatternColor = wdColorWhite
End If
ActiveDocument.Protect Type:=wdAllowOnlyFormFields, _
NoReset:=True
End Sub

Assign this macro as the exit macro of each text form field. To have
each new document start with the fields colored, also put in this
macro:

Sub AutoNew()
Dim fld As FormField
With ActiveDocument
.Unprotect
For Each fld In .FormFields
fld.Range.Shading.BackgroundPatternColor = _
wdColorYellow
Next
.Protect Type:=wdAllowOnlyFormFields
End With
End Sub

This sort of thing works for form fields because you can assign an
exit macro that runs automatically when you exit the field. There is
no such thing for a table cell that does not contain a form field.
Although it would be possible to use an application event handler for
the WindowSelectionChange event to change the background color of a
table cell, its behavior is not very nice. See
http://www.eggheadcafe.com/software/...nd-to-red.aspx
for a discussion.