Legacy forms - content control - I need help!

Question

I am working for a sporting institution and my department are creating an application form for local clubs to apply for funding.

There is a mix of qualitative and quantitative data where some answers needs to be stored in excel documents to help with organization and admin side of things.

We managed to add in the legacy forms and extract the data to an excel sheet however the problem is when the document is set to "form fill in only" the non legacy form text boxes become locked and therefore can't be filled in.

We could leave the form on regular edit - however we are very aware that some of the applicants are not very competent IT wise and we are concerned they may delete the legacy form box and cause other issues down the line. We have thought of just adding legacy forms to every question, extracting all the data and then hiding on the excel sheet which columns where unnecessary - but I believe there must be a way to do it.

I have read on this forum that content controls can enable this to work - however, I am unfamiliar with this and do not want to complicate things further.

Can anyone give me an idea of what would be the best way to keep the legacy form formula - while locking it for "form fill in only" and leaving the other text boxes available to be filled in by the respondent.

Many thanks

Answer 1

Frankly I would urge you to reconsider the legacy form fields and use content controls (which should be protected as read only and not as forms). It is no more difficult to extract the data you require to Excel and controls can be much more flexible.

You may find https://www.gmayor.com/insert_content_control_addin.htm useful as it will provide a means cof converting your legacy fields to content controls, and provides all the editing tools you will require to simplify the task.

You may also find http://www.gmayor.com/ExtractDataFromForms.htm useful whether you work with legacy form fields or content controls.