On 2024-08-30 12:14, Alan wrote:

I've been forced to use a Windows PC lately to do some work in Word
where Microsoft has not seen fit to provide the same UI in Word for
macOS as it has in Word for Windows; specifically surrounding what they
now call "Content Controls" and which any normal person would call form fields.

Another example of the terrible shite that is Word for Windows.

In the are of using Word for forms as previously discussed and using the
"new and improved" Content Control ("CC") objects (that don't have a UI
for manipulating them using the Mac version, but do still work as
they've been configured in the Windows version).

There is a CC object called a "Repeating Section" which can be used to
create forms that need and unspecified number of additional entries for
things like the people who have reviewed the document, the terms used, etc.

You apply that object to the row of a Word table where you have
previously created fields ("ReviewerName", "ReviewerTitle",
"ReviewDate") and in my case, the first column contained "Reviewer" as a
title for the entire row, because it accompanied other rows for the
"Author" and the "Authoriser" of (in this case) a standard operating
procedure.

When the form is protected, the user can no longer edit anything except
what is inside CC object, but Word treats the first column of my row in
the Repeating Section as editable (and changes the standard semantic
that tabbing into a Word table cell selects the entire cell and you
can't use tabs in a cell without typing—on the Mac-the option key, to
putting the insertion point at the beginning of the cell AND suddenly
letting you use tabs IN the cell), but:

There is a way to turn off that behaviour!

You simply change the properties of the Repeating Section so that the
user cannot edit its contents; only the contents of the unlocked CC text fields! All is happiness, right?

Wrong.

Because...

UNLIKE EVERY OTHER Content Control object

...when you have set the properties of the repeating section to
uneditable, they remain uneditable even when the document is unprotected.

Get it?

All this form field stuff is supposed to work once the form is created
AND you have protected the document.

Until that time, you need to be able to edit things to...

Gee, I don't know!

...get the form formatted the way you want.

This is only one of a LITANY of poor design still in a feature that was introduced to Microsoft Word...

...with the introduction of Word 2013...

...more than 11 years ago.

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