Archive for February 11th, 2009

Create a Drop-Down List in MS Word Forms

Wednesday, February 11th, 2009

Lots of times there is a need to create a form within MS Word wherein the form is e-mailed to a colleague or a client and they fill out the form and send it back to you.

It can be very tedious to sort through the information when users insert data that you are not specifically looking for and that is where drop-down lists come in very handy, because you can create a drop-down list with specific items for selection.

To create your drop-down list, follow the steps below:

If your form template has already been created, open it and remove protection from the form.

If you are just creating your form, right-click on an empty spot on your toolbar which will open the list of Toolsbar.  From there, click on the Forms Toolbar, which will open a floating toolbar.

Click the Drop-down Form Field button.

Double-click the field to open the dialog box.

Type each choice for the drop-down list and click Add.

Make sure you arrange them in the order you prefer.

Click OK.

The form will display the typical arrow next to the field. When you click it the choices are displayed for you.

Don’t forget that you will not be able to use the form until you protect it!

You can use these same techniques to create an online form for the Web. In this case, however4, use the tools on the Web Tools toolbar to creatre the form fields, which has many of the same controls as the Forms toolbar.

Go ahead and experiment with it. I think you will find that it is fun to create forms and not difficult at all!