Creating Forms in MS Word

Alan Levine, Maricopa Center for Learning & Imstruction

A Word form allows you to create a document where the user can only
type in designated parts (form fields) of the document, and preventing
them from editing the entire document.

This document itself is created in this manner. How does that sound?

As you can see above, you can type only in the gray box that has been created as a form item. You can use
your TAB key to toggle between that form field and the one below:

Do you like tabbing between form fields? Describe how this feels?

General Steps
1. Create an approximate layout of the form, leaving room for the answer spaces. I use formatting borders
(Format -> Borders and Shading…) to put boxes around these areas.

2. Display the Forms Toolbar (View -> Toolbars - > Forms)

3. Move the mouse to the location where an

answerbox should be. Click the ab| icon on the
Forms Tool palette to add a text form field (a
place for someone to type text).

4. When you have added all of the desired form fields, lock the document by going to Tools -> Protect
Document… In the dialog box, click the radio button for Forms:

Then enter a password and click OK. You will have to

re-enter the password as a confirmation.

5. Save the document. Keep the original in a safe place (in

case you need to make changes) and make a copy of the
document to try as a user might see it. Users should know
that they can tab from field to field, print, email, and they can
save the modified version of the document on their computer.

There are many more options on the Forms palette that allow
you to limit the amount of text types, to format numbers and
dates, etc. Check the Word docs for more on these topics.
Practice Creating a Word Form
In the following sections, we give you some step by step instructions for working with the Form creation
tools of MS Word. In this silly example, we are creating an assignment report form where students had
investigated one of the planets in the solar system and made some decisions on what they would take to
travel there.

1. Open the template (“space_report_template.doc”). This is a formatted document that has the layout
of the assignment report already created as MS
word tables.

2. Create a text input field. Click in the white cell

next to “name:” From the forms tool palette, Click
the ab| icon. This inserts a text input field for the
student’s name.

3. Create a formatted text input field. Repeat step

2 for the next cell, to add another input field
adjacent to “Today’s date”. Click the form field options icon in the form palette (fourth from the left
with the little hand). This allows
us to set some options for this
input area. From the “Type”
menu, select Date. From the
Date format: menu, select a
format type from the drop down
menu. Then click Ok.

4. Create a drop down menu.

Click once in the cell next to the
“Planet” label. Click the
dropdown menu icon on the Forms palette (third from the left) to create the menu. Then click the
Form-Filed options icon in the
Forms palette (fourth from left) to
edit the drop menu. You will need
to type each entry in the Drop-
down item field, then click Add
>> to make it appear in the list.
You should enter the following as
drop down menu items:

• Select a Planet
• Mercury
• Venus
• Mars
• Jupiter
• Saturn
• Neptune
• Uranus
• Pluto
And click OK when you are done.
5. Create check box options. Click in front of each
word in the cell adjacent to “Characteristics” and
click the check box icon in the Forms palette. This
will create options that can be checked on or off.

6. Create a form field with limited

length input. To restrict the amount of
text entered into a form field, you can
set the limit. The form will simply stop
taking keyboard input when the limit
is reached. Word counts the number of
characters, so you have to make some
guesses based on word lengths, etc.
Click in the field adjacent to
“Description of Surface”, and use the
Forms palette to insert a text input
field (see step 1). Then click the Form
Fields option icon and in the Maximum Length Field, enter 300. Click Ok.

7. Create a Text field with default text. Next to the “Strategy”: label, insert a text input field as you
have already done several times. Click the Form Fields options, and in the default text, write some
content that you may want to appear in the form field when first viewed by the student.

8. Create a Number Input Field for

Calculated items. In the cell adjacent
to the label “personnel” (under
“Weight Budget”), create a text input
field. Click the Form Field options to
change the input type to Number.
Under Number format, select 0 for
whole numbers (no decimals). Under
Field Settings, check the box labeled
Calculate on exit so that when the
cursor leaves this input field, the
calculation total we will create will be
updated. Create the same types of
input fields for all the “weight budget items”. As a shortcut to setting the form field options for each
one, highlight the form field created for “personnel”, select Copy from the Edit menu (or Ctrl-C), then
click into each table cell you would like to insert a new input field, and select Paste from the Edit
menu (or Ctrl-V).

9. Create a Table Field Calculation. In the bottom row of our

report form, we will create a field that sums the totals of the
cells above it. Click once in the empty cell next to “Calculated
Total”, and then select Formula… from the Table menu. In
the Formula: field we need to tell Word which cells are to be
totaled. This is a little tricky, and works like Excel where your
table columns are identified left to right as “a,b,c,…” and the
table rows are identified numbered top to bottom as “1,2,3…”
Therefore, our numbers are in the second column (“b”), in
rows 8 through 14. The Formula to enter is =SUM(b8:b14)
and we choose a Number format of 0, and click OK.
10. Test the form. If you click the lock icon on the far right side of the forms palette, the form is activated
as a student might use it and you can test your efforts. Click the lock again to return to editing mode.
(to clear any entered form content, click unlock-lock-unlock). Note that this does not truly lock the
form as anyone with access to the Form palette can open it up.

11. Put a password protection on the form. When you have added
all of the desired form fields, lock the document by going to
Tools -> Protect Document… In the dialog box, click the radio
button for Forms:

Then enter a password and click OK. You will have to re-enter
the password as a confirmation.