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Easy Form conversion?

  1. #1
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    Question Easy Form conversion?

    Like a lot of "smaller" police departments, some of our forms were made in the 70's or 80's and photocopied a few thousand times until they're practically unreadable. I am in the process of updating our forms to either Word or Excel formats, depending on the amount of flexibility I required in the form. After I completed my most recent project (Death Scene Checklist) I realized that our officers/detectives would probably benefit from having a form that they could copy their "hand-written" form onto. I began changing the form over with text boxes and check boxes and found it to be very slow going.

    So- I guess the question is: Is there an easy way to "lock" the text in the cells so that I don't have to redo the entire thing?

    (the attachment has two tabs "PRINT" which is the original printable version and "ENTRY" which is the method I started using if you look at row 2 there are text boxes floating above the cell...)

    Any help would be appreciated,
    Thanks
    Crash
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  2. #2
    Forum Expert Simon Lloyd's Avatar
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    The short answer is No!, if you want to keep the sheet as it is add a row under you text then you will be able to lock the row above when the sheet is protected, you can save your workbook as a Template so the original will never change (it can be changed whilst it is viewed and saved as a different name). Your other solution would be to construct userforms for each section, have a front sheet with buttons on that show the userforms then have each particular userforms details transferred to the correct places in the sheet.

    Just a few suggestions, sorry there's no quick fix for you.
    Not all forums are the same - seek and you shall find

  3. #3
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    As an example of what Simon is talking about (his first option), I played with the first two rows (using your PRINT version).
    First I removed gridlines from Options so it shows borders only. Then I inserted a row beneath your "Date Body Found" and one beneath "Occurred in/on". I modified borders so that where they would type and the header look like a single box. I unprotected those new cells (default is all cells protected) and then protected the spreadsheet (Tools>Protection>Protect Spreadsheet). (You'll need to undo that if you want to continue with this particular sheet). Take a look and see if you like that.

    ChemistB
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  4. #4
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    Thanks Simon and Chemist. I'll probably go with that option. I appreciate the help. Probably my biggest challenge is making it simple to use for everyone. Thanks again.

  5. #5
    Forum Expert Simon Lloyd's Avatar
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    Sorry Crash my friend you are sorely mistaken....your biggest challenge is getting the design right that everyone will use, useability will ultimately depend on your design. I designed a skills tracking system for my employer some time ago and 17 versions later had something everyone was happy to use!, wish i had put pen to paper first then. Best of is you do write down what action you expect to take in each cell/textbox/combobox/radio button/checkbox etc as the user navigates it will save you time when coding it or asking for help coding and will give you an immediate insight as to which control you use there.

    Of course during your designing/coding please come back to us where we will be pleased to help!

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