Setting Default Properties for a Form

To set the default properties for a custom form that has form pages, use the Properties tab in the Forms Designer.

Note

For more information about how to set the default properties in a Microsoft Outlook form that has form regions as opposed to form pages, see How to: Create a Form Region.

The following are the default properties for custom forms that have form pages:

• Category You can specify a category for your form to help organize the forms in the Choose Form dialog box when you select a form.

• Sub-Category You can further refine the category by specifying a sub-category.

• Always use Microsoft Word as the email editor Since Microsoft Office Outlook 2007, Outlook uses Microsoft Word as the email editor. However, using Word as the editor is optional in earlier versions. If you create forms for users who use earlier versions of Outlook, you can use this option to specify Word as the editor for the message portion (or control) of your form. Users then have all the formatting options that are available with Word, such as the spell checker and thesaurus. For these options to be available, the recipients of your form must have Word installed.

  Note

  This feature has not been changed from earlier versions of Microsoft Office. The code behind this option uses an older architecture for using Word as the email editor and does not provide the same user experience with Word that clicking Options on the Microsoft Office Backstage view does. Solutions that you create for earlier versions using Word as the email editor might not work, or might not work properly, in Office Outlook 2007 or a later version of Outlook.

• Template You can specify the Word template to use to format the text in the message control of the form.

  Note

  Although Word is now the email editor, this setting, as applicable to Outlook forms, is enabled only if you select the Always use Microsoft Word as the email editor check box. If this check box is cleared, you cannot set templates.

• Contact When you click Contact, you can access the Address Book, where you can select the people who maintain, upgrade, or distribute information about this form. The contact information that you provide appears in the Forms Manager dialog box and the form Properties page.

• Description You can type a description for your form. For example, you could include instructions for how to use the form or explain the purpose of the form. Outlook displays the description in the About dialog box on the Help menu of the form and in the Properties dialog box for the form.

• Version You can set a version number for this form. This is a free-form text field and does not affect Outlook behavior in any way.

• Form Number You can set a unique form number that identifies the form. This is a free-form text field and does not affect Outlook behavior in any way.

• Change Large Icon Click this button to open the File Open dialog box, where you can select a different large icon for your form. Large icons appear in the form Properties dialog box.

• Change Small Icon Click this button to open the File Open dialog box, where you can select a different small icon for your form. Small icons appear in the Outlook folder to represent an item of the type the form creates.

• Send form definition with item Instructs Outlook to include the form definition when you send the form. (Note that the form is much larger when it includes the form definition.) When you select this option, Outlook creates a self-contained form that the recipients can use to view the form, even if they don't have access to the same forms library as the sender.

  Note

  Because of improvements to security since Office Outlook 2007, this option is not recommended nor is it necessary in most cases. In general, publishing the form is all that is needed.

  Outlook does not run Microsoft Visual Basic Scripting Edition (VBScript) code if the form definition is included with the item. In most cases, it is better to publish a form instead of including the form definition with the item. If you do send the form with the item, you can re-enable the VBScript code if you use the Outlook custom security settings. In that case, if you send a form with this box checked, the recipients see a Warning dialog box, and they have the option to disable the macros because the form is not published.

  Harmful macros could delete or copy their files, or send email messages from their mailbox to another user.If network or file transfer time is an issue, and you cannot publish the form for some reason, an alternative to sending the form definition is to save the form and send it as an attachment to another form. Recipients can take the attached form and publish it in their own forms library.

• Use form only for responses Hides a form when it is published to a forms library. This option is useful in situations when you create a form to use solely for replies. In another form, you can specify that your reply form will be used instead of the default reply form. To use your form only for responses, select the Use form only for responses check box, and then publish your form.

  Open a second form in design mode. On the Actions page of the second form, you can specify your published form in the Reply or Reply to All action. To use your form as the default reply form, double-click the Reply action in the second form. You can select the name of your published reply form in the Form name field of the Form Action Properties dialog box.

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