Good afternoon. I have been asked to to update a word doc to show different fields based on a selection in a check box. All this works fine, i used VBA to hide and unhide the fields based on the check box selection and all works well....on my machine.



I was not aware until today that with word 2007 my macros do not work on another user's machine (we don't use VBA in word often at all, this was the only solution i could come up with based on their needs). Unlike previous versions, where a user is prompted to enable macros upon opening a macro enabled document, it seems like word 2007 has made this more, if not too secure.

This document is shared on a network drive that any user can access and fill out. From my research around the net today, it sounds like there are a bunch of steps a user has to do in Word to be able to view the macro i built. Currently if another user opens my document on their machine, you can't even see the macro. To put it mildly, i work with a bunch of non-technical people, and telling them they have to go and install in add in or make changes to their normal.dot file or change trust locations is a non-starter. I might as well be speaking a different language.

Is there not a simpler way to create a word doc with some vba and have it available on a network share where anyone who opens the document has the macro available when they choose that check box option? Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks!

Your description suggests your users have their macro security set too high and/or the file is not being saved to a trusted location. Macro security setting in Word 2007 & later are essentially the same as for previous versions. Your users should go to Word Options>Trust Centre>Macro Settings and set the security level to the 2nd option (disable all with notification). That means they'll be asked whether to allow macros in a document to run. If you store the file in a trusted location, the macros will be available without that prompt.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

Hi Paul, thanks for your response. It's not the macro security issue, i have checked with my testers and they all have it set to the lowest setting (enable all macros), they were advised to when we upgraded to word 07 as we have numerous documents and apps that run macros. The document is stored in one location and users access it through a dashboard type program created in access. They don't store documents locally. So with a trusted location, would each user have to set this file share up as a trusted location? It seems that this would be the only way to get this working, otherwise, we won't be able to use the macros i built and would have to find alternative means.

Hi Paul, I actually have resolved this issue. Luckily the dashboard program we use to launch these documents actually adds the location to the trust centre when you install this tool. So that was the issue, was not having the file in a trusted location. It is working now since i moved the file to the server. I am sorry to have wasted your time, i had no idea that this was setup until talking to the developers of this tool. Thank you again for taking the time to respond.

Regards,
Sean

That is really unwise - which is why MS has '(Not Recommended)' against that option. What you should do is to create/designate a trusted location in which to store files containing the approved macro or digitally sign the documents, so they can be run without the prompts (if that's what you want), and at most have the default setting to the second option. A trusted location could be a single folder or a group of folders on the network, and you can have more than one trusted location.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]