my company's software product has a feature that allows users to generate forms from Word templates. The program auto fills some fields from the SQL database and the user can fill in other data that they desire. So we have a .dotx template that holds the design of the form, and then the user gets the .docx file to fill out when they call it from our program.
The problem we're having is that some of our users have been finding that the forms take an exceptionally long time to open up and then, once open, are so slow to respond (scroll around, etc) that they're unusable. So in my investigations so far, I've found out that the problem systems are one with lower powered CPUs (unfortunately it happens for systems above our system requirements) and the Word forms that cause the problems are ones with large amount of ActiveX style checkboxes on them. I verified that reducing the ActiveX checkboxes fixes the form loading problems.
So I have the following questions about solutions (we're using Word 2007):
1) Is there any way to configure Word, or some other settings, so that there won't be such a strain opening a Word form with lots of ActiveX checkboxes? Any way of speeding up Word's opening?
2) Using Legacy style checkboxes instead of the ActiveX ones makes the forms load fine, but it looks like the user has to double-click the checkbox and change Default Value->Checked. Is there a way to configure it so that they can simply click on the checkbox to tick it? "Legacy Forms" checkbox as a name kind of worries me (Legacy…), does that mean a future version of word at some point wouldn't load the checkboxes because they're "legacy"?
3) Yes, it became clear to me after a little bit of research into solutions that Word is not the tool for the job for forms like I'm describing. InfoPath seems to be exactly what we should have been using all along but unfortunately I wasn't involved in the decision making or development of these forms, just tasked with coming up with a solution.
I'd appreciate answers to any of these, or if anyone has any other ideas for solutions to this problem.
Thanks
I'm about 3 years too late, but if you want a legacy checkbox to act like a checkbox, you have to restrict editing on the document or section. (You can lock just a section, if you want.) Locking--on Word 2010 it's called "Restrict editing"--is an option under either the Developer tab or the Review tab.
If you restrict editing in this way, the user cannot edit the text but can fill in the form field, so if the form field is a checkbox, the user can click the checkbox on or off; if the form field is a text box, the user can fill the text box.
If you choose to lock off just a section, you'll probably want to use continuous section breaks (Page Layout > Breaks > Continuous) and specify which section. (In the space where you choose form editing as your kind of restriction, there's a small link that lets you specify which section or sections are locked.)
Related
I have an input form in which users submit multiple types of information to the database.
Is there any way I could provide an example input of what should go in each field, upon the form loading?
Some fields I'd expect a small paragraph of text, others are dropdowns. The dropdown fields I wouldn't need to put an example of course, just the string text fields. If I try and include an example in the Default value for example, it would save the default value, which I wouldn't want.
Any help is greatly appreciated - It's worth noting I'm quite new to Access & coding in general.
I agree you probably don't want to use default values, or actually enter dummy data into the actual controls for the reason you mention: saving dummy values to the table.
A few possibilities:
Use a custom tooltip. You can do this by editing a control's "controltip text" property. Keep in mind that tooltips are only visible to the user when they hover the cursor over the specific control.
Add a label below the input control that describes the information that should be put in the control. This would always be visible, but can quickly cause your form to be cluttered and difficult to read.
I should say though, that you want to attempt to make your forms as intuitive as possible. For example, if you expect a paragraph of text, make the textbox much larger than a control only expecting a 6 character string. The more you are concerned with UX (user experience), the greater the chance that users will pick up on expectations using subtle design hints. I highly recommend researching the topic if you are concerned that your users will be unable to decipher the purpose of your form/controls. Be sure to check out the UX page on SE.
Furthermore, you can utilize a control's "AfterUpdate" event to validate the input placed in the control as soon as the user moves away from it. For example, you could test if the input IsNumeric() to validate that numbers were entered instead of text. If text is found, you can use a message box to alert the user, and move the cursor back to the control that is invalid.
Of course, that's the customized approach to just using the control's validation rules. The only issue I have had with the standard validation rules is user exhaustion. It can be irritating for a user to deal with validation messages when they are already aware that a typo was made. With an unbound entry form that requires a save button, I usually batch all control validation into the save procedure. This allows the user free reign to skip controls in the tab order without being blocked by constant validation exceptions.
we have a possible customer, who would like to have a custom ribbon in ONE template, which makes it for him easier to design the text etc.
This stuff should work on Office 2007, 2010 and 2013.
Since this will go to thousands of people, the easiest solution for this would be, to implement Macros, which do the Design-Stuff.
It seems to be no problem (I tested only with 2013) to create a custom ribbon and connect it to macros, it seems even to be possible to define custom Icons.
The real problem causess the Ribbon itself. Since, if I activate my custom ribbon, it's activated for all documents, I have to anyhow create a macro, which makes it visible JUST for one template.
Is this even possible, or is there a possibility to define a Ribbon per dotm? I didnt find anything about that, but what I found makes me nervous about the 2007, 2010, 2013 thing...
Or is it easier to create an Addin, which is kindahow compatible with alle 3 Versions?
Use Visual Studio and start a Word Template project. You can use VB if macros are to your liking or C#.
Your future documents will have to have the template attached for the ribbon to show up, which in my experience has proven to be a pain.
Alternatively you can create an addon that handles document-open events and checks if the document looks like what you expect it to look like. Heuristics can be very tricky if you don't have very specific indicators (such as an attached template, schema or content tags)
Another suggestion, which would most likely be acceptable to users, is to write an addon that shows and hides its main ribbon tab but has a ribbon button to "activate" the document and when you click that button (on another tab) it attaches your template or assigns some other persistent indicator to the document. This addon would also check each document when opened for that indicator and automatically show the actual ribbon tab when the document is recognized.
I'm looking at Word as part of a document generation solution for a law firm. There are different documents that need to show/hide certain clauses/sections based on business rules and logic that can be fairly in depth - things like a specific judge in a specific county requiring certain information, so entire sections of the document may be shown or hidden based on this logic.
I'm aware of the Content Controls in Word, but is it possible to have nested content controls inside each other? For example, let's say I have a dynamic paragraph (i.e. it might be shown or hidden based on some business rule) and that paragraph also needs to display the name of the plaintiff, which is retrieved from a database.
Our current solution uses a pseudo templating language inside of the Word docs that gets parsed out and replaced (something like {FIELD "FIELD_NAME"} which would insert the value of FIELD_NAME) and it seems to work fairly well but I'm curious if it couldn't be improved using built-in features of Word instead of custom software.
Is something like this possible? I've found an article for Word that seems to indicate this exact scenario, but no articles or resources explaining how to actually achieve it.
Sure, you can nest other content controls within a rich text content control.
You can do this programmatically (in Word using VBA, or in a VSTO Add-In).
But first just try it in Word (enable the Developer ribbon, then insert a rich text control, then insert other content controls in that). A rich text content control can contain paragraphs, tables etc (provided that it is block level, not run level).
I have been tasked with updating a Word 2010 fillable form for one of our departments. In various places in the form it uses a drop-down box with the same 20-or-so items in the list. I would like to make it so all occurrences of this box fill from a master list, thus making it easier to update in the future. I know in Excel you can do this with Data Validation and selecting a source list from somewhere else in the workbook. Is it possible to do something similar (reference a table, hidden text, etc) in Word? I have not been able to locate a feature in Word that looks promising, nor have my Google searches yielded anything useful. I realize this would probably work in VBA, but I'm hoping to avoid adding code to the workbook if possible. I would also prefer that the list be updateable by someone who does not know VBA. I'm not looking to do the impossible, so if you know for a fact that this cannot be done, say so and I'll move on.
Thanks.
i am building a webapp that will have notes fields all over the place, but i dont know what kind of markup i should use.
these are my requirements
User must be able to change the text style (bold, italic, underlined)
User must be able to create bullet lists
User must be able to create numbered lists
User must be able to change the font-size or use pre-definded headings
User must be able to add links
User must have a WYSIWYG - Editor that hides the actual markup
the last one is the most important requirement, my target users struggle even with word, so using markup style input like here on stackoverflow is not an option.
so what kind`s of markup do you know that fits ans has some fancy WYSIWYG - Editor?
if you think that i missed a important requirement please feel free to suggest it.
tia
You'll need to check out tinyMCE.
It's the best javascript-based WYSIWYG editor I've found.