[RBLampert]

I'm creating a form in Word 2002 that will use a lot of combo boxes. As far
as I can tell, it appears that the only way I can tell people who will be
filling out the form, "here is a combo box," is to shade it and trust that
they will know to click on the shaded area to get the drop-down list of
options. Is there a way to display the down-pointing arrow at the right side
of the box all the time so not-so-expert users will be cued to the fact that
they can make choices in that gray space?

[Graham Mayor]

Protect the form and tell your users to navigate it correctly by tabbing
between the fields. You can use an autonew macro in the document template to
provide instructions

Sub AutoNew
MsgBox "Use the TAB key to move between fields" _
& vbCr & vbCr & _
"To access multiple choices click the arrow" _
& vbCr & "at the right of the selected field"
End Sub


--

Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com
Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org


RBLampert wrote:
I'm creating a form in Word 2002 that will use a lot of combo boxes.
As far as I can tell, it appears that the only way I can tell people
who will be filling out the form, "here is a combo box," is to shade
it and trust that they will know to click on the shaded area to get
the drop-down list of options. Is there a way to display the
down-pointing arrow at the right side of the box all the time so
not-so-expert users will be cued to the fact that they can make
choices in that gray space?

[Jay Freedman]

Another alternative is to replace the information-gathering parts of the
form with a Userform
(http://www.word.mvps.org/FAQs/Userfo...eAUserForm.htm) containing the
combo boxes, and place only the results into the document.

--
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.

Graham Mayor wrote:
Protect the form and tell your users to navigate it correctly by
tabbing between the fields. You can use an autonew macro in the
document template to provide instructions

Sub AutoNew
MsgBox "Use the TAB key to move between fields" _
& vbCr & vbCr & _
"To access multiple choices click the arrow" _
& vbCr & "at the right of the selected field"
End Sub

RBLampert wrote:
I'm creating a form in Word 2002 that will use a lot of combo boxes.
As far as I can tell, it appears that the only way I can tell people
who will be filling out the form, "here is a combo box," is to shade
it and trust that they will know to click on the shaded area to get
the drop-down list of options. Is there a way to display the
down-pointing arrow at the right side of the box all the time so
not-so-expert users will be cued to the fact that they can make
choices in that gray space?

[RBLampert]

Thanks, Graham. Actually, I noticed after I posted the question that with
the protected form, when a user clicks in or tabs into the table cell
containing the combo box, the down-arrow appears. Also, if I make the first
option something like "--select one--", that should serve as a good hint that
the box contains a drop-down list of choices.

"RBLampert" wrote:

I'm creating a form in Word 2002 that will use a lot of combo boxes. As far
as I can tell, it appears that the only way I can tell people who will be
filling out the form, "here is a combo box," is to shade it and trust that
they will know to click on the shaded area to get the drop-down list of
options. Is there a way to display the down-pointing arrow at the right side
of the box all the time so not-so-expert users will be cued to the fact that
they can make choices in that gray space?