Microsoft Office Word 2003 Inside Out (Bpg-Inside Out)

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The Protect Form button is an important option on the Forms toolbar. Before you can see the form in the way the user will see it, you must protect the form.

When you protect a form, you lock the fields in place so that no further changes can be made to field formats or specifications. Of course, you'll still be able to use the lists as intended, select check boxes, and enter text in text fields. To protect a form, click the Protect Form button; to unprotect a form, click the Protect Form button again. When a form is protected, the fields appear as the user will see them. When the form is unprotected, you see only the field name or the sample data you've entered for the field.

Password-Protecting the Form

You might want to assign a password to a form so that you can control when-and if-a form is unprotected. To protect a form in this way, follow these steps:

  1. If necessary, unprotect the form by clicking the Protect Form button on the Forms toolbar.

  2. Choose Tools, Options, and then click the Security tab, as shown in Figure 31-10. The top of the tab enables you to set two different kinds of passwords-one to open the document, and another to modify it.

    Figure 31-10: You can use the Security tab of the Options dialog box to assign a password to the form.

  3. In the password box of your choice, type a password of up to 15 characters.

  4. Click OK. Word displays a Confirm Password dialog box so that you can reenter the password you've chosen to verify that you've entered it correctly.

  5. Type the password, and then click OK. The Word password protects the form.

Modifying a Password-Protected Form

If you want to modify a password-protected form at a later time, you can use your password to enable editing. When you open the file, a dialog box appears asking for your password. Type the password and click OK, and the form will appear as shown below.

When you've finished making changes, save and close the file. Your changes will be saved and the form will be protected once again.

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