Duplicate form fields (word 2003)

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I made up a form with fields for student deficiency information for our school. Of course, we need to have duplicates. The form is only half a page high, so we could put the duplicate on the bottom half of the page. Is there an easy way to have the bottom form automatically change its field info as the top form is filled in? (not that it would be that difficult to just copy the form at the top and paste the copy to the bottom once everything was filled in, but that wouldn’t be quite as elegant)

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Unprotect the document.
Copy the form from the upper half of the page to the lower half.
Repeat the following for each text form field in the upper half.

– Double click the form field.
– Note the bookmark name – if you wish, change it to something meaningful.
– Tick the check box “Calculate on exit”.
– Click OK.
– Double click the corresponding form field in the lower half of the page.
– Select Calculation in the Type dropdown list.
– Type the bookmark name you noted before in the Expression box, without an = before it.
– Click OK.

When you’re finished, protect the document for forms again.
When you fill in a form field in the upper half of the page and press Tab, the corresponding form field in the lower half will be updated with the same value.

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Thanks, that works just as I wanted it to–for the text fields. But I also have check boxes and drop-down lists. Is there a way to make these work in the same way?

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You could use a cross reference to the bookmark instead of the copy of the formfield for dropdown fields (and for text fields, for that matter). You could even boomark the entire form, and create a cross reference to that bookmark. It’ll include all fixed text, text fields and dropdown fields.

There is no easy way to duplicate check boxes, however. You’d need to write VBA code for each check box. Adding VBA might not be an attractive idea – if security is set to High macros won’t run, and if it is set to Medium, you get a warning each time the document is opened.

An alternative would be to replace the check boxes with Yes/No dropdown fields.

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