Create Word Forms with Controls

Create Word forms with controls that users can complete or print without you having to worry that they will mess up and edit your forms. There are controls that can prevent this below that you can download and print 24 hours a day, 7 days a week at your convenience.

For the churches and/or organizations that uses the Microsoft Office Word program for their forms, there is some very valuable information in the step-by-step instructions below on "How to Create a Form in Word that Users can Complete or Print" where you do not have to worry about them messing up your form because the controls will prevent this from happening.

The "How to Create a Form in Word that Users can Complete or Print" includes:

• Statement - In Microsoft Office Word, you can create a form for your church or organization that others can fill out and save or print. To do this, you will need to start with one of your documents or templates that you want to use or you can start with a blank document. Then you can add content controls for elements such as check boxes, text boxes, date pickers and drop-down lists. Follow these action steps:
• Show the Developer Tab - In Word, be sure your Developer tab is displayed in the ribbon bar. If you don’t see it then you can easily add it by: 1. Right clicking in the blank, gray area on the end of the ribbon and click “Customize the ribbon”. 2. You can find “Developer” in the list under “Main Tabs” and just click the box on the left side of it to make sure it is check marked and then click “OK”..
• Open your document or template on which to base the form - You can start with a template or start with a blank document.
• Add content to the form - Go to the Developer tab on top of ribbon bar in the Controls section where you can choose controls to add to your document or form. Hover over any icon to see what control type it represents. You can set properties (below) on a control once it has been inserted. You can delete a content control by right clicking it; select Remove content control in the popup menu. Note: You can print a form that was created via content controls. However, the boxes around the content controls will not print.
• Set or change properties for content controls - Each content control has properties that you can set or change. For example, the Date Picker control offers options for the format you want to use to display the date. 1. Select the content control that you want to change. 2. Go to Developer > Properties. 3. Change the properties that you want.
• Add protection to a form - If you want to limit how much others can edit or format a form, use the Restrict Editing command: 1. Open the form that you want to lock or protect. 2. Select Developer > Restrict Editing. 3. After selecting restrictions, select Yes, start Enforcing Protection.
• Advanced Tip - If you want to protect only parts of the document, separate the document into sections and only protect the sections you want. To do this, choose Select Sections in the Restrict Editing panel.

Microsoft Office Word has a lot of nice features and it's nice to be able to insert these different types of controls into your Word template or document and not have to worry about having to fix the form later because you know the controls will prevent this from happening.

Here are the different types of controls in a Word form that you can use:

• Adding Protection to a Form by Restrict Editing - See above.
• Insert a Text Control - The rich text content control enables users to format text (e.g., bold, italic) and type multiple paragraphs. To limit these capabilities, use the plain text content control. 
• Insert a Picture Control - A picture control is most often used for templates, but you can also add a picture control to a form.
• Insert a Building Block Control - Use a building block control when you want users to choose a specific block of text. These are helpful when you need to add different boilerplate text depending on the document's specific purpose. You can create rich text content controls for each version of the boilerplate text, and then use a building block control as the container for the rich text content controls.
• Insert a Combo Box or Drop-Down List - In a combo box, users can select from a list of choices that you provide or they can type in their own information. In a drop-down list, users can only select from the list of choices.
• Insert a Date Picker - Controls the way the date appears, etc.
• Insert a Check Box - Controls the way you want your check box to appear.
• Use the Legacy Form Controls - Legacy form controls are for compatibility with older versions of Word and consist of legacy form and Active X controls.

"How to Create a Form in Word that Users can Complete or Print

If you would like to receive access to the FreeChurchForms.com Table of Contents that has all the free church forms, church certificates, church flyers, baby shower invitations/games and more that are listed in alphabetical order by category with links leading to the page to immediately download just simply sign up for my free monthly newsletter below. You will also receive access to my free 14 Page eBook - "Top Ten Tips on How to Organize Your Office" as a Thank You Gift for signing up. Enjoy! :)

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

Return to Home Page from Create Word Forms with Controls.