locking down a word document

**Jerry.Peoples** · 09-17-2010, 10:07 AM

Good morning,

I would like to be able to lock down the attached document. the only thing a person should be able to alter is answering the information, everything else i would like to be made unalterable

for example, in the top portion, they should just be able to type in todays date, name, phone, address etc...

but when they type in this information, i would like it not to reformat the page meaning if what they enter is too long then it pushes the row to the right down to the next row.

i have used forms toolbar for the checkmarks and to mark spaces where they can just use checkmarks and also i used the text form field to mark where their answers are.

i am sure i am just missing a simple setting but for the life of me can not figure it out.

thanks

**Andy Pope** · 09-17-2010, 10:16 AM

What if you restrict the text input by setting the maximum length on the text fields?

**Jerry.Peoples** · 09-17-2010, 10:45 AM

ok, so i limited the length of text in the document, but when filing in the answers, it still rearranges the text to make space for it. is there a way to limit that?

**Andy Pope** · 09-17-2010, 11:03 AM

Have a read of this
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q212080/

**Jerry.Peoples** · 10-07-2010, 11:22 AM

setting the length of the fields didnt help according to that article as it will only show that amount of characters you list. more can still be entered

basically off of the doc i attached i want everything to be locked down except to the right for the user to input the answers to the fields.

this is really begining to frustrate me.

thanks

**JulieM** · 10-10-2010, 08:54 AM

Hi Jerry
I am a little confused - the revised document you have attached doesn't seem to be a form at all? I am able to type anywhere on the page, not just in the intended answer spaces ~

The workaround in AndyPope's link, using a table works as far as restricting alignment goes so that everything stays "pretty".
Anyway - if it is important that the recipients' responses fit into a defined number of spaces, rather than allowing them to give a "free" response, why not use a database form? Access will NOT let you enter more characters into a specified field, unless you choose to define it as a memo field.

Use an AutoExec macro so that the program opens straight into the created form only and then there is no difference to the non-technical user, so long as Access is installed on the pc.