Create & Format Forms with Microsoft Word | Professional Writing Tips

Everyone loves a good, clear, easy-to-fill-out form (at least Scriptorium does)! However, creating a form that is user-friendly and easily editable may not be common knowledge. Let us walk you through our favourite tips and tricks for drafting the perfect form.

An individual holding a pen and filling out a form.

Before Creating Your Form

You have a blank page in front of you and are ready to draft your form. Now what?

A good starting point is to gather all the information you require from the person filling out the form (e.g., personal information, project details, etc.). Depending on the length of the form, it may make sense to group your questions into a few sections. For example, you may have a General section with some checklist items and a separate section with more detailed short-answer questions.

Now that you have your questions and they are grouped (if required), you can start.

Creating Your Form

Word Benefits

Of course, many applications allow you to create a form. For example, some people use Adobe to create PDF forms; however, we love using Word for our forms. Most people tend to have Word installed on their computer, and although there are benefits to other form applications, using Word may eliminate the need to pay for and learn to use another application.

Developer Tab

The Developer tab in Word is a form’s best friend. It allows you to add checkboxes, fillable fields, date pickers, etc., making your form more user-friendly (especially if it will be filled out digitally).

An individual holding a pen and filing out a form.

If your Word doesn’t have a Developer tab, you can add one for free! Select Options > Customize Ribbon from the File tab. Under Main Tabs, select the Developer checkbox. You should now see the Developer tab nestled between the View and Help tabs in your Word document.

Checkbox Content Control: Allows you to add checkboxes for your form that can be checked off or left unchecked.
Text Content Controls: Allows you to add editable text fields to your form, including greyed-out examples or prompts of what should be written in the field.

Note: The greyed-out text will disappear once someone starts typing. Select Design Mode from the Developer tab to enable this feature.
Picture Content Control: Allows you to add a placeholder that can be replaced with an image.

The Microsoft Word Developer Tab. — Figure 1: Picture Content Control in Developer Tab

Tables

There are multiple ways to format forms, but our favourite tip is to use tables. Tables make adding, removing, and moving information much less frustrating. You can use them for checklists, questions and answers, signature and date sections, and more.

Your lines will be clean and aligned, and you can make the borders invisible once everything is done.

For example, this is what a checklist section may look like when drafting it in a table:

A table's borders are visual when beginning to create a form. — Figure 2: Checklist in a Visible Table

However, once you remove the table lines, this is what it will look like to the person filling out the form:

A table's borders are invisible when adjusting its format. — Figure 3: Checklist with an Invisible Table

Alternatively, instead of making all the lines invisible, you can intentionally remove some lines and keep others to give the illusion of a textbox.

For example, the following textbox was created with a two-row table. The question was typed in the first row, and the lines surrounding it were made invisible.

Using a table to create a comment textbox. — Figure 4: Using a Table for a Textbox

You can do the same to create a signature line, strategically keeping one of the table lines visible for the person filling out the form to sign on.

Finalizing Your Form

Now that you’ve created your form, you want to make sure that the person filling it out can only edit what you want them to. This ensures that no questions get deleted, the formatting can’t be changed, and no answers are out of place.

Lock It!

To ensure you have full control over the contents of your form, except for the fillable parts, you may want to lock your form.

To lock your form:

Select Restrict Editing from the Developer tab or Protect from the Review tab.
Select the Allow only this type of editing in the document checkbox.
Select No changes (Read only) from the drop-down menu.
Highlight a part of the document that you want to remain editable.

Note: This can be a cell in a table, a checkbox, a content control, etc.

Select the Everyone checkbox.
Repeat steps 4 and 5 until all parts of the form you want to remain editable have been specified.
Select Yes, Start Enforcing Protection.

Figure 5: Restrict Editing Option
If you want users to enter a password to edit locked parts of the form, enter the password twice and select OK.

Note: You can leave the password fields blank and select OK to opt out of a protective password.

Enforcing form protection by applying a password. — Figure 6: Enforcing Editing Protection

Test It!

Now comes one of the most important (but often forgotten) steps: testing your form.

Pretend you are filling out the form, and make sure nothing was accidentally left locked. You don’t want to send someone a form to fill out just for them to say they can’t do anything with it. If the form can be filled out digitally or on paper, make sure you also print it out, ensuring that everything looks as good on paper as it does on the screen.

This step is best performed by someone else (e.g., your proofreader) who hasn’t worked so closely with the document.

Still aren’t excited about creating a form? Send it to Scriptorium, and we’ll handle it all for you!

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Creating & Formatting Forms with Microsoft Word