MS Word drop down list

General Computing Coding and Design
1

Righto, complete non-technical bod here (my job title includes the word manager, so all technical ability went out the window years ago! :()

Trying to put a drop down box in to a Word document (using Word 2007, but will be saved as a 97-2003 compatible document). It’s to go in a table so that the document controller/editor can update the field when required. I would like the drop down box to be able to have a number of fields, they don’t have to do anything, other than be displyed (i bet this will be quite easy to you VBA guys). Need the fields to be:

New
Recorded - Accepted
Recorded - Rejected
Recorded - Emergency
Authorisation - Rejected
Authorisation - Approved
Implemented
Documented
Closed - Failed
Backout Plan Implemented
Cancelled
Closed - Succesful
PIR Documented

Can anyone help a complete noob?

cheers

Kef

2

Woot, never mind, google to the rescue! Using develpers tools in Word 2007 i added a ‘Drop down list’ form field, suprisingly it gave me a drop down for list! Who would have guessed! :slight_smile:

3

Can i ask for a bit of help guys? I’ve put some drop down forms into the word document, but when i open it they aren’t active, i have to go into the VBA editor and run each sub to activate the lists contained within them, then i can change, save and exit the document but when i open it again i have to go through the same process all over again (running each sub).

I’ve attached the document, so if anyone could have a look and suggest anything to solve this that would be great,

cheers

Kef

4

I’m no VBA expert m8 but you don’t have macro execution disabled in Office by default for security do you?

5

I deleted all your code and added

Private Sub Document_Open()
    With ThisDocument.ComboBox1
        .AddItem "New"
        .AddItem "Recorded - Accepted"
        .AddItem "Recorded - Rejected"
        .AddItem "Recorded - Emergency"
        .AddItem "Authorisation - Rejected"
        .AddItem "Authorisation - Approved"
        .AddItem "Implemented"
        .AddItem "Documented"
        .AddItem "Closed - Failed"
        .AddItem "Backout Implemented"
        .AddItem "Cancelled"
        .AddItem "Closed - Succesful"
        .AddItem "PIR Documented"
    End With
    With ThisDocument.ComboBox2
        .AddItem "Outage"
        .AddItem "Maintenance - Planned"
        .AddItem "Maintenance - Unplanned"
        .AddItem "Service Pack"
        .AddItem "Software Patch"
    End With
    With ThisDocument.ComboBox3
        .AddItem "Low"
        .AddItem "Medium"
        .AddItem "High"
    End With
    With ThisDocument.ComboBox4
        .AddItem "Standard"
        .AddItem "Minor"
        .AddItem "Major"
        .AddItem "Critical"
    End With
End Sub

Is that what you are after?

6

Cheers Kevin i’ll give it a try. The main problem is that even with macro security disabled it won’t run the sub, i manually have to go into the vba editor and run it to populate the drop down boxes. P51 is sending me a document for me to look over that is much the same as this so will have a look at that also.

Starting to think that maybe Word is not the best way of doing this, or at least not trying to automate it. May have a rethink and do it as a web page that fires off an email at the back end when all the forms are fileld out. It’s only an interim measre to get the change process off the ground whilst i try for funding for the BMC Remedy 7 change module for work (£50k add on!!!) :slight_smile:

7

Cheers Kevin, that seems to have done the trick, now when i open the document and enable the macros the drop down lists are populated.

8

To the best of my knowledge, the docoument that we were using doesn’t use VBA at all. We never had to enable any macros or anything to use it.

I will still send it off to you when I get in on Monday morning.

9

arghh, I thought I had posted a reply to this one :shrug:

That kind of form is what InfoPath is excellent at, combine it with a Small Business Server with the basic sharepoint server on and you have a nice global ticket type system pretty much out the box.

Of course, it’s just as easy to put it as a form on a web page in php - I supopse that’s the consultant in me suggesting more ways I could get more work :wink: :chuckle:

DT.

10

Yeah, had thought about InfoPath, but this just needed to be a quick and dirty (and cheap i.e. no cost) fix as we will be buying the change module for Remedy 7 to integrate all this. Need to get somthing in as we are looking at getting ISO accreditation before the end of the year.