How to Create Your Own Form Template with Word 2010

By Mark L. Chambers from "Mac OS X Lion All-in-One For Dummies"

Word 2010 gives you the ability to create your own forms. (A form is a special type of document in which parts of the document are protected from user modification. A user can enter information only in predefined, fill-in-the-blank portions of the document, which are form fields.) To create a form, you must first create a template. The template contains the text and graphics that appear on the blank form as well as the form fields.

To create a form template, follow these steps:

1. Choose File—>New to display the New page in Backstage view, and then select Blank Document and click Create.

This action creates a new, blank document.

2. Choose File—>Save As, then select Word Template from the drop-down list.

If you want the template to be available from the File—>New command, navigate to your Templates folder.

To discover the folder location, choose File—>Options, click the Advanced tab, scroll all the way to the bottom, and click File Locations. Then select User Templates and click the Modify button.

3. Type a name for your new form template and click Save.

The initial copy of the template is saved.

4. Choose File—>Options.

The Word Options dialog box opens.

5. On the Customize Ribbon tab, select the Developer tab in the list box on the right. Then click OK.

The Developer tab appears containing the commands you need to create a form.

6. Create your form and insert form fields.

Type text where you want text to appear, insert graphics where you want graphics to appear, and insert form fields where you want form fields to appear.

To insert form fields, click the Legacy Tools button in the Controls group on the Developer tab. The form controls are in the top row of this menu, labeled Legacy Forms.

7. Click the Restrict Editing button, found in the Protect group of the Developer tab on the Ribbon.

Using a password helps ensure that only you can unprotect the form to make changes to the form’s layout.

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The Restrict Formatting and Editing task pane appears.

8. Select the Allow Only This Type of Editing in the Document check box and then select Filling In Forms from the drop-down list.

This action protects the document so that the user can enter data only in the form fields.

9. Click the Yes, Start Enforcing Protection button in the Restrict Formatting and Editing task pane.

The Start Enforcing Protection dialog box appears.

10. Type the password you want to use to protect the document in both text boxes and then click OK.

Using a password helps ensure that only you can unprotect the form to make changes to the form’s layout. If you don’t care about password-protecting the form, just click OK without typing a password.

11. Choose File—>Save to save the template.

That’s all. You’re done.