
Use a combo box to provide suggested options and still permit someone to enter their own information.ĭrop-Down List. Shows a list of options and includes a text box for entries not on the list. With the Picture control, you can include a photo as well.Ĭombo Box. Suppose you are creating an employee form with contact information for each employee in your company. A content control that holds pictures, which can be anything from a photo to a chart to a company logo. Rich Text content controls permit only one paragraph. One major advantage of plain text boxes is that they can hold more than one paragraph. You can format the words in a Text content control, but all the words are formatted the same. Use the Rich Text content control when the content needs elaborate formatting. For most forms, you should use the plain Text box. For example, you can type "The Missing Manual." The main advantage of the Rich Text control over the plain text content control (mentioned next ) is that the typist can apply different formatting to the text within the text box. For example, use a text box for the Name field in a form.

Great for areas where people need to fill in information. Text boxes that hold a paragraph of formatted text. Here's a description of the different content controls you can insert into your documents: Microsoft provides several different types of content controls that you can plug into your documentseach designed to collect information in different ways. (Each content control has a name that other programs can use to extract information from your form.) 14.2.1. Content controls do other useful things, too, especially when it comes to using the information you collect. You can create customized and clearly labeled text boxes and drop-down menus to make it easy for people to fill in just the information you're looking for.

With content controls, you can lock up your form so bumbling or ill-intentioned folks can't change it, but they can type the information you need. (Or worse, what if they change your subscription rates?) You can solve this problem by using Word's content controls. Anybody with Word can also edit your form, even deleting important information and returning you something useless. You can email your form to subscribers and have them fill it out in Word, but the problem with that is obvious. If your subscribers in the example above filled out a computer form, then you wouldn't have to retype the information to use it. This process is time-consuming and subject to error.

Printed forms are fine, but they have a drawback: Sooner or later, someone has to manually take the information from the form and transfer it to address labels or a database to use it.
