Legacy fields are available in the same area on the Ribbon as the content controls: in the Controls group on the Developer tab. (If you don’t see the Developer tab, click the Office button, click Word Options, checkmark the Show Developer Tab In The Ribbon box, and click OK.) Legacy fields are placed in the same way as content controls. Click the Design Mode button and then click in the document where you want to insert the field.

Three Legacy Fields

There are six buttons in the Legacy Forms area, but only three of them create fields: Text Form Field, Check Box Form Field, and Drop-Down Form Field. The other three are Insert Frame, Form Field Shading, and Reset Form Fields.

The Text Form Field is the most often used and most general legacy field. It can contain three basic field types: regular text, a number, or a date. (You can also use it to place Current Date, Current Time, and even a Calculation.)

Let’s see how it works. Click the Legacy Tools button and the Text Form Field button to place the field. It appears as a gray area with a blinking cursor. Click Properties on the Ribbon to see the Text Form Field Options dialog box.

Aside from Type, there are three other options that appear in the top section of the box. Two of them, Default (Text, Number, or Date) and Maximum Length, do not change much regardless of which Type you choose. The other option, (Text, Number, or Date) Format, does change depending upon the type chosen.

Choose Number from the Type drop-down list, and you’ll see corresponding options in the Number Format drop-down list. You can change the formatting of data users enter to meet your needs. For example, you might want a dollar sign ($) added to an entry indicating the price of an item. Select Date in the Type list, and you can specify how the date will appear by choosing an item from the Date Format drop-down list so entries will be uniform.

You can control how much space an entry can take up with the Maximum Length option. You can ignore this setting when you use a format that already implies a length, such as the date format yyyy-MM-dd. With Regular Text, however, you might want to set the limit at a certain number of characters. Simply type in the number, and the restriction will be applied.

Add Help Text

What if you wanted to inform the form user of the Maximum Length restriction or of other information? You can do this by adding help text that shows up in the Word Status Bar or when the user presses F1.

To add help information, click the Add Help Text button at the bottom left of the Text Form Field Options dialog box. Next, select either the Status Bar or Help Key (F1) tab. Click the Type Your Own radio button and type in a message such as “Maximum Characters = 25.” Click OK. This Add Help feature is also available with the other form field options.

You must use the Protect Document function when using legacy fields. When you are done placing the fields, click the Design Mode button to go out of Design Mode. Click the Protect Document button on the Ribbon and then select Restrict Formatting And Editing.

In the pane that opens on the right, checkmark the boxes under 1. Formatting Restrictions and 2. Editing Restrictions. In the drop-down box, choose Filling In Forms as the only type of editing allowed in the document. Click the Yes, Start Enforcing Protection button. You then have the option of entering a password to protect the form. Click OK. Save the document one last time and then close it. It is ready for distribution.

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