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Old 04-12-2018, 10:46 AM
Nikko963 Nikko963 is offline How to unlock header content control in form Windows 7 64bit How to unlock header content control in form Office 2016
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Default How to unlock header content control in form

Hello, everyone. Thanks in advance for your assistance.



I have a multi-page form in Word 2016 which is locked for forms. One of the content control text fields on the cover is for a company's name. I want that name to be inserted into a content control field in the header of the remaining pages. Unfortunately, the code I wrote that worked during the design phase (unlocked doc) DOESN'T work once the document is locked for forms: I get an error message that the content control is locked even though the "Contents cannot be edited" property is successfully unset (unlocked) by the code. If I unlock the document, my code works fine.

My script:

With Doc.SelectContentControlsByTag("PartnerNameHeader" ).Item(1)
.LockContents = False
.Range.Text = _
Doc.SelectContentControlsByTag("PartnerName").Item (1).Range.Text
.LockContents = True
End With

So...why does locking the document for forms have some sort of override that is preventing the content control from being edited even if its field properties says it is editable? How can I overcome this?

Thanks again.

- Nikko
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  #2  
Old 04-12-2018, 02:22 PM
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macropod macropod is online now How to unlock header content control in form Windows 7 64bit How to unlock header content control in form Office 2010 32bit
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With 'filling in forms' protection, you can't access header/footer content; you can with 'No changes (read only)' protection if the header/footer content control is marked as an exception. You have a number of options:
1. temporarily disable 'filling in forms' protection while updating the header/footer content;
2. switch over to 'No changes (read only)' protection with the appropriate range exceptions
3. apply a unique Style name to your PartnerName content control and, instead of using your PartnerNameHeader content control, use a StyleRef field in the header to reference that Style.

PS: with 'filling in forms' protection - even if temporarily disabled - you don't need to lock the content control, because it's inacessible.
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Old 04-12-2018, 08:39 PM
Nikko963 Nikko963 is offline How to unlock header content control in form Windows 7 64bit How to unlock header content control in form Office 2016
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Thanks, except that #2 has the same problem in reverse. If I lock with exceptions, then a field within the body of the document which doesn't have an exception cannot be modified by my VB script. (Same error.) So while this might take care of my header problem, since the user can't access the header anyway, it just gives me the same problem for fields elsewhere in my document.

I need to have content control objects within the body of my document and my header whose content can only be set by my VBA script. There will naturally be other CC objects (only within the body of the doc) that the user can modify but the user shouldn't be able to touch anything else.

I'll take a look at #1 next...

- Nikko
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Old 04-12-2018, 09:10 PM
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Guessed Guessed is offline How to unlock header content control in form Windows 10 How to unlock header content control in form Office 2016
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Nikko

Why would you need code to perform the task normally done more simply by using linked content controls? Have you explored linked content controls and discarded them for some reason?
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Old 04-12-2018, 11:18 PM
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gmayor gmayor is offline How to unlock header content control in form Windows 10 How to unlock header content control in form Office 2016
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Mapped and duplicated content controls seem sensible to me too. You could use https://www.gmayor.com/insert_content_control_addin.htm to aid the insertion of mapped controls, then all you have to do is copy and paste the duplicate control to the other location. Whatever you type in one is repeated in the other(s).

If you lock the controls against deletion, there is no need to protect the form. Protection for forms is a very weak form of protection. If people want to screw up your form, they will.
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Old 04-13-2018, 06:50 AM
Nikko963 Nikko963 is offline How to unlock header content control in form Windows 7 64bit How to unlock header content control in form Office 2016
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Unlocking and re-locking the document for forms in VB did the trick.

As for other kind suggestions:

I have no interest in introducing a 3rd-party tool into my company's increasingly paranoid (with some justification) IT security environment.

Using a linked document property field hadn't occurred to me, and I will keep this in mind for future projects. For now, this one is already done.

I realize that the document protection offered by Word is not really secure, but it is good enough for my current purposes. If the stakeholders in this document want better security, I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

Thanks to all for their input.
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Old 04-13-2018, 03:08 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Nikko963 View Post
Thanks, except that #2 has the same problem in reverse. If I lock with exceptions, then a field within the body of the document which doesn't have an exception cannot be modified by my VB script. (Same error.) So while this might take care of my header problem, since the user can't access the header anyway, it just gives me the same problem for fields elsewhere in my document.

I need to have content control objects within the body of my document and my header whose content can only be set by my VBA script. There will naturally be other CC objects (only within the body of the doc) that the user can modify but the user shouldn't be able to touch anything else.
I'd have thought that's be obvious. If you apply 'No changes (read only)' protection, only ranges marked as range exceptions can be edited (whether content controls or not); and I did say:
Quote:
with the appropriate range exceptions
Solution #3 works quite happily without requiring macros or linked content controls.
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