Knowledge Base

WD: Preserving Text When Re-protecting a Form Without Macros

Article ID: 189172

Article Last Modified on 8/18/2005

Microsoft Word 6.0 Standard Edition
Microsoft Word 6.0a
Microsoft Word 6.0c
Microsoft Word 6.0 for Macintosh
Microsoft Word 6.01 for Macintosh
Microsoft Word 6.01 for Macintosh
Microsoft Word 6.0 Standard Edition
Microsoft Word 95 Standard Edition
Microsoft Word 95a

This article was previously published under Q189172

SYMPTOMS

When a form with information entered in the fields is manually unprotected and re-protected, the information is lost and the form fields are reset to their default settings.

WORKAROUND

Locking text form fields before protecting the form prevents the entered text from being lost if the form is unprotected and re- protected. To lock a text field, follow these steps:

Select the field.
Press CTRL+F11 (Windows) or COMMAND+F11 (Macintosh).

Note If Help for WordPerfect Users is selected, CTRL+F11 (Windows) or COMMAND+F11 (Macintosh) will not function.

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article.

MORE INFORMATION

The information in text fields will not be lost when the document is protected again, and the fields will function as usual while the form is being filled out in protected mode.

Warning This workaround preserves only text fields. Check boxes and drop-down list selections are still lost when you unprotect and re- protect the field. A calculation field will no longer be updated and will maintain the current value until unlocked, even if it is printed or if a macro is run to update it.

Additional query words: losing deleting delete field formtext tools lost forms

Keywords: kbbug kbfield kbpending KB189172