Control over protecting over 3 sections in Word.

[sailships]

I know that this thread may be a little misplaced here.. however, I trust this community, AND, I'm not finding MS Word message boards out there... (so if you can recommend any of those, that would be great too...)
At any rate, has anyone had experiences similiar to mine below?

I've created a new word document.
There are 5 sections.
1. & 2. & 5. The first two sections and the last (fifth) sections are tables. These should still be capable of entering text.
3. The third section, I've placed multiple 'Check Box Form Field' check boxes. Of course, I'd like to keep these available for the user to check as well.
4. The fourth section is whats causing me the trouble. I have a 'Drop Down Form Field' in my "Authorized By" field, which I would like to keep as it lists who can actually Authorize the document. However, with the 'Drop Down Form Field', in order to get the drop down field to appear, I have to use 'Protect Form'. When I do this, it blocks out the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 5th sections from being used.

In the left-side "Protect Document" section, in #2 "Editing restrictions" where I can "Select sections...", in "Section Protection" / "Protected sections:" I only get 3 sections:
Section 1 / Section 2 / Section 3

To unprotect Sections 1 and 2, I can enter text in the upper two sections.
However, I *cannot* check the 'Check Box Form Field' check boxes.
And only protecting 'Section 3'... allows me to use the 'Drop Down Form Field', however prevents me from entering text in the last section at the bottom of the screen.

In a similiar document with check boxes, it continually opens in design mode, even if I have exited design mode and saved the file. Based on another thread, I have decreased the security level of Macros to "Low", with no change in symptoms.

Any suggestions?

Many thanks.

[edited by: bill at 4:33 am (utc) on April 10, 2006]
[edit reason] removed URL [/edit]

[bill]

Sorry that nobody has helped you out here yet. We don't get very many Word questions here.

Back when I used to fiddle around with Word forms I remember the difficulties encountered when I wanted to use those drop-down menus. You have to redesign the entire document to use form elements that will function when in the Protect Form mode. For example, in your tables you would have to make every cell contain a text form field where you wanted text to be entered. I honestly haven't worked on forms with the newer versions of Word that have protected sections. Would it be possible to use something other than the drop-down form element for your form?

[sailships]

Hi Bill.
Thanks for getting back to me.

I ended up revising the Word document more to fit within the limitations I was encountering.

Basically, I put the portions of the document that I wanted people to be able to enter text in to at the top portion of the document, where it didnt have to be protected, and then where I used the drop downs, I placed those at the very bottom of the document, which it needed to be protected to work.

So, I worked around it.

Thanks for your reply tho!