Dropdown selection choices not appearing in Word

Question

I've been following the instructions to add a drop box field to my Word document. One suggestion was to add "insert form field" with "customize ribbon". The other is to use the Developer menu to insert a drop-box content control. I have tried both methods. Neither leaves me with a box with the arrow to the right that you click on, the list of options drops down, and you click on the correct one to populate the space. The first screenshot shows what I get when I insert a "drop-down list content control". The second shows what I gets when I "insert form field". What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

What happens when you select the content control or form field? Your first screen shot indicates that you are still in Design Mode. If you turn off Design Mode, you should get this:

When you click the arrow, you'll get this:

I would advise against using legacy form fields, as that requires protecting the document for forms.

Answer 2

Preliminary note as to jargon:

When you use the (understandably) wrong terms to refer to a Word feature you will find very strange things in Word's help or Internet searches.

The Word jargon terms for these features are:

• Dropdown Content Control (choose only from choices offered)
• ComboBox Content Control (choose from choices offered or type your own text)
• Dropdown Formfield (a legacy form control that lets you choose only from choices offered when the document is locked for forms)

"Drop box" usually refers to the cloud service.

As to your question:

Suzanne is correct that you will not see the choices in the Content Control when in Design Mode. You want this turned off to use it.

She is also correct that absent strange circumstances you want to be using the Content Control. As a lawwyer, for a court form I expect you do not usually want to use a ComboBox and let people add their own choices.

You do not want to be using the Filling in Forms method of restriction which really limits many of Word's functions including spell checking. The simplest method of protection to limit what people can do to your Content Controls is the Group Content Control.

Select all your text and apply that control and the only places people can do anything is in the other Content Controls.

If you need to add a password before someone can unlock the form, you would want to use the No Changes - With Exceptions form of protection, perhaps in addition to the Group Control. You would need to set each spot where you want someone to be able to make changes as an exception, including your Content Controls. Note that the passwords available for any kind of editing restriction are extremely weak and easy to circumvent.

I see you are placing your controls in a Table. That is one of the simplest methods of locking down placement.

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