AutoFormat within Form Fields

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated July 4, 2020)
This tip applies to Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003

Mary was having a problem getting AutoFormat As You Type to convert "straight quotes" to "smart quotes" within the fields of protected forms.

Unfortunately, this seems to be one of the vagaries of working with Word. Quite a number of Word's features won't work in the fields of a protected form; AutoFormat As You Type is just one of them. Why the Word designers set things up this way is one of the great mysteries of the universe.

The only possible workaround would be to write some sort of OnExit macro that is triggered when the form's user moves from one form field to another. The macro could examine the contents of the form field and change any straight quotes to curly quotes. This, of course, is not an ideal workaround, since you might not want all quotes converted, which means the parsing rules can get rather complex.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (1637) applies to Microsoft Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. Learn more about Allen...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Hyperlinking to a Specific Excel Worksheet

Creating a hyperlink to an Excel workbook is easy. With the information in this tip you can discover how to hone that ...

Discover More

Showing Elapsed Time in a Graph

Working with elapsed times can be a bit tricky in some situations. One such situation involves the displaying of elapsed ...

Discover More

Changing the Language for All Styles

Styles are very powerful, and can really help when it comes to formatting your documents. If you are working with ...

Discover More

Comprehensive VBA Guide Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) is the language used for writing macros in all Office programs. This complete guide shows both professionals and novices how to master VBA in order to customize the entire Office suite for their needs. Check out Mastering VBA for Office 2010 today!

More WordTips (menu)

Entering Many Items In a Drop-Down Form Field

One of the controls you can add to a Word form is a drop-down form field. This field is similar to drop-down lists used ...

Discover More

Undesired Font in Form Fields

If you get unwanted formatting in your form fields, it could be because of the way you are formatting the line on which ...

Discover More

Field Calculations in Locked Forms

When adding form fields to a document, you may want some of the fields to be automatically calculated from other fields. ...

Discover More

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

Notify me about new comments ONLY FOR THIS TIP

Notify me about new comments ANYWHERE ON THIS SITE

Hide my email address

What is nine more than 7?

There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)

This Site

Got a version of Word that uses the menu interface (Word 97, Word 2000, Word 2002, or Word 2003)? This site is for you! If you use a later version of Word, visit our WordTips site focusing on the ribbon interface.