[Ann]

What are the differences between a UserForm and a Fill-In form?

[Jay Freedman]

Ann wrote:
What are the differences between a UserForm and a Fill-In form?

First, there is nothing in Word that is "officially" called a fill-in form,
so I'll assume you're talking about a "protected" form using form fields.

A protected form is a document into which form fields have been inserted,
from the Forms toolbar (Word 2003 and earlier) or the top row of the Legacy
Controls gallery (Word 2007), and which has then been protected "for filling
in forms" in the Protect Document task pane.

A UserForm is a sort of user-defined dialog, programmed in the VBA editor,
which displays on top of the document window.

This isn't an either/or choice; you can create a protected form that
displays one or more UserForms to help in filling the form fields.

In terms of operation, they're quite different. Among the differences:

- A protected form can use only text, checkbox, and dropdown list fields.
The UserForm designer offers those three types plus option buttons, combo
boxes, picture boxes, and several other types of controls by default, and
you can add other kinds (although that may require you to distribute extra
files to other users) -- for example, a calendar or a color picker.

- A UserForm can be programmed to do data validation, forcing the user to
enter correct information before allowing them to move to the next field.
That's more difficult to do in form fields, and may require macros.

- A UserForm won't operate if the user has blocked execution of macros in
their copy of Word. A protected form (if it doesn't use associated macros or
UserForms) is not affected by the macro security level.

- When a form is protected, there are many features that are disabled. Among
these are spell-checking, insertion of pictures or drawing objects, and
addition of more fields. Getting around these limitations by programming
macros is possible but tedious.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP FAQ: http://word.mvps.org
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