Change appearance of Check Box in Word

Hi all,

I'm using Microsoft 2003 and have a document containing Check Box Form
fields. I find that the appearance of the checked box is not
drastically different enough from the rest of the form when checked,
and many users fail to notice when a box is checked. Is there any way
to make a Check Box bold, or darker so that it stands out from the
rest?

Thanks in advance for the tips,

David




--
ComcoDG

A check box form field acts almost like a character. While the form is
unprotected, you can e.g. select a check box and apply a larger font size or
change the font color (you can also apply e.g. bold font, but it will not
make the check box look different). In addition, you can make the check box
appear with colored fill. If you use the Borders and Shading dialog box to
apply shading to the check box, the shading will only be visible if you have
_not_ turned on Form Field Shading. Alternatively, you can apply highlight
(but you do not have so many colors to select from) – the highlight will be
visible even if you have turned on Form Field Shading.

--
Regards
Lene Fredborg - Microsoft MVP (Word)
DocTools - Denmark
www.thedoctools.com
Document automation - add-ins, macros and templates for Microsoft Word


"ComcoDG" wrote:


Hi all,

I'm using Microsoft 2003 and have a document containing Check Box Form
fields. I find that the appearance of the checked box is not
drastically different enough from the rest of the form when checked,
and many users fail to notice when a box is checked. Is there any way
to make a Check Box bold, or darker so that it stands out from the
rest?

Thanks in advance for the tips,

David




--
ComcoDG

Thanks for the response. I’m really looking more for a way to make a
check box more demonstrative, or stand out more. Instead of merely
checking a box, I would love to find some way to have the change in
appearance of the checked box be much more drastic. This would allow it
to stand out from the other unchecked options. When uncheck its default
appearance works just fine since it doesn’t stand out.

Lene, it seems like you are saying that the function I’m looking for is
not available. I can change the general appearance of the Check box,
regardless of whether it has been checked or not. But I cannot have the
appearance of a checked box change any more than the natural check.

Bummer. Thanks anyhow.




Lene Fredborg;357963 Wrote: [color=blue][i]
A check box form field acts almost like a character. While the form is
unprotected, you can e.g. select a check box and apply a larger font
size or
change the font color (you can also apply e.g. bold font, but it will
not
make the check box look different). In addition, you can make the check
box
appear with colored fill. If you use the Borders and Shading dialog box
to
apply shading to the check box, the shading will only be visible if you
have
_not_ turned on Form Field Shading. Alternatively, you can apply
highlight
(but you do not have so many colors to select from) – the highlight
will be
visible even if you have turned on Form Field Shading.

--
Regards
Lene Fredborg - Microsoft MVP (Word)
DocTools - Denmark
www.thedoctools.com
Document automation - add-ins, macros and templates for Microsoft Word


"ComcoDG" wrote:





--
ComcoDG

Let's put it this way: A check box form field _by itself_ doesn't have any
function for doing anything other than inserting and removing the X in the
box.

Anything else you want it to do, such as making it bold or changing its
color or highlighting, would have to be done by a macro stored in the
document or its template. As an example, the following macro could be
assigned as the "on exit" macro of each check box in the form:

Sub BoldCheckedBoxes()
Dim fld As FormField

If ActiveDocument.ProtectionType wdNoProtection Then
ActiveDocument.Unprotect
End If

For Each fld In ActiveDocument.FormFields
With fld
If .Type = wdFieldFormCheckBox Then
If .CheckBox.Value = True Then
.Range.Paragraphs(1).Range.Bold = True
Else
.Range.Paragraphs(1).Range.Bold = False
End If
End If
End With
Next

ActiveDocument.Protect Type:=wdAllowOnlyFormFields, _
NoReset:=True
End Sub

Every paragraph that contains a checked box is set to bold (this could be
modified to make it a different color, or to apply a highlight), and every
paragraph that contains an unchecked box is set to "not bold".

The drawback of this, or any other method that involves macros, is that Word
is extremely suspicious of macros because of security threats. The only way
to be sure the macro will run on other users' computers is to digitally sign
it with a certificate, and that's quite expensive. Otherwise you have to
instruct form users how to enable macros.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP FAQ: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

ComcoDG wrote:[color=blue][i]
Thanks for the response. I’m really looking more for a way to make a
check box more demonstrative, or stand out more. Instead of merely
checking a box, I would love to find some way to have the change in
appearance of the checked box be much more drastic. This would allow
it to stand out from the other unchecked options. When uncheck its
default appearance works just fine since it doesn’t stand out.

Lene, it seems like you are saying that the function I’m looking for
is not available. I can change the general appearance of the Check
box, regardless of whether it has been checked or not. But I cannot
have the appearance of a checked box change any more than the natural
check.

Bummer. Thanks anyhow.




Lene Fredborg;357963 Wrote:
A check box form field acts almost like a character. While the form
is unprotected, you can e.g. select a check box and apply a larger
font size or
change the font color (you can also apply e.g. bold font, but it will
not
make the check box look different). In addition, you can make the
check box
appear with colored fill. If you use the Borders and Shading dialog
box to
apply shading to the check box, the shading will only be visible if
you have
_not_ turned on Form Field Shading. Alternatively, you can apply
highlight
(but you do not have so many colors to select from) – the highlight
will be
visible even if you have turned on Form Field Shading.

--
Regards
Lene Fredborg - Microsoft MVP (Word)
DocTools - Denmark
www.thedoctools.com
Document automation - add-ins, macros and templates for Microsoft
Word


"ComcoDG" wrote: