OL97: How to Share a Custom Form with Others

MORE INFORMATION

After a form has been created you can publish the form to several different locations. These locations include the following:

• A folder on your local computer, such as the Inbox
• Your Personal forms library
• Your Organizational forms library.

The process of distributing a form, to a person or to a group that is outside your organization is different. You can do this by saving the form as an Outlook Form Template (.oft), and then sending that file as an attachment in an e-mail message. The recipients open the attachment and publish the form to the appropriate location.

Saving the Form as an Outlook Form Template

To save the form as a template, follow these steps:

1. With the form open, click Save As on the file menu.
2. Type the name of the form, and note or change the location in which you are saving the form.
3. In the Save As box, click to select Outlook Template(.oft).
4. Click Save, and then close the form.
   
   If you are prompted to save changes to the form, click No.

Attaching the Form to a Mail Message

To attach the form, follow these steps:

1. Open a new mail message.
2. On the Insert menu, click File.
3. Locate your file. Click to select it. Check to see that Attachment is selected in the Insert As box. Click OK.
4. Address and send the email message as usual.

Opening and Publishing the New Form

To open and publish the form, follow these steps:

1. On the recipients computer, open the mail message that contains the attached form.
2. Open the attached form by double clicking it.
3. On the File menu, click Publish Form As.
   
   NOTE: To publish the form in Outlook 2000, do the following:
   
   On the Tools menu, point to Forms, and then click Publish Form As.
4. Change the publishing location by clicking Publish In, Select the appropriate folder or forms library, click OK, and then click Publish.
5. Close the email message.