Hello everyone, I am going to create a fillable form, but I have a problem creating it and it is when I protect document and only enable the feature to just fill in the fillable forms it easily I can easily fill in the fillable forms, but when I unprotect it and then try to fill it when I want to fill the form, the shadowed area vanishes suddenly.

When the document is unprotected, clicking a text form field and typing will replace the content of the field.

Please elaborate on what you are trying to accomplish.

__________________
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP

Microsoft 365 apps for business
Windows 11 Professional

To elaborate on Stefan's response...
The idea of this type of form is that you:

1. Create a Template of your form. You put in the fields and protect it for filling in forms.
2. You use that template to create a new Document that has the form.
3. You move from field to field in the form using the tab key and fill out the fields. The form stays protected.

If this scenario is not what you have in mind, what is it you are trying to do? Word may have different tools better suited to meeting your objectives.

Indeed, if the form should be more "flexible," perhaps content controls would work better for you. Of course, these won't be backward compatible with versions older than Word 2007.

__________________
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP

Microsoft 365 apps for business
Windows 11 Professional

In fact I wanted to do all these steps but without protecting the file!
I think it is not possible!

The idea of a form protected for filling in forms is that the only place you can type is in a form field. The fields designed for that are not intended for use in an unprotected document.

Look at Content Controls, then, assuming you don't need to use this in earlier versions. They can work without any protection. As a matter of fact they are rather a nuisance to delete (although it isn't hard).

Thanks Charles, I think I know it now.

I've read the above thread, the tab to the next field isn't working after restricting the editing. How can I set it to tab to the next field??

Version of Word?
Restricting Editing how?
Did you make any exceptions?

Word 2010, restrict editing button on the developer tab and I'm not sure what exceptions are 😔. I created fields for text to be entered and dates

Fields?

Legacy form fields?
Content Controls?

Once you press the Restrict Editing Button you are given choices as to what to restrict. One is Filling In Forms. That one is suitable only for legacy form fields. The Date Picker is a Content Control, not a legacy form field and the two should not be mixed.

This is confusing, I know.
Making Forms with Microsoft Word

Thank you, that helped. I was able to accomplish what I needed and it tabs to the next fields. I appreciate your help

You are welcome.