Microsoft KB Archive/291415

= OL2002: Forms Can Have Only One Message or Notes Control =

Article ID: 291415

Article Last Modified on 3/1/2004

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APPLIES TO


 * Microsoft Outlook 2002 Standard Edition

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This article was previously published under Q291415





SYMPTOMS
When you design or use a custom Outlook form, you may receive the following error message:

This form has more than one Message or Notes control. If more than one control is visible at run time, only one control works.



CAUSE
Outlook forms support only one field that can store Rich Text Format (RTF) data. If you add additional controls to display this field, Outlook warns you that additional controls may not function as you expect.



RESOLUTION
Do not add more than one control on the form to display the Message or Notes field.



WORKAROUND
If you want to implement additional fields that store RTF data, you may be able to use one of the following methods to work around this limitation:

Method 1
Instead of trying to implement additional fields to store RTF data, use multiple attachments, such as Microsoft Word documents.

Method 2
If you are a C or C++ programmer, you can use Extended MAPI to access MAPI properties that can store and retrieve RTF data. However, there is no direct way to integrate these custom properties with Outlook items.



MORE INFORMATION
If you are developing a custom Outlook form, you may want to include more than one field that stores RTF data or in-line attachments. However, Outlook items are designed so that they support only one underlying field that is capable of storing RTF data. In Outlook, this field is called Message or Notes, depending on the type of form you are using.

The control that is used to display the Message or Notes field is called the Microsoft Outlook Rich Format Control, and is available in the list of custom controls that you can insert onto a form. However, if you add additional Rich Format controls onto the form, they are automatically bound to the same underlying field to store the RTF data. Therefore, all of these controls will display the same data.

Although this warning is designed for the forms developer when he or she is designing the form, it also appears when the form is used. There is no way to disable this message when you have more than one Microsoft Outlook Rich Format Control control on the form, so you should avoid adding additional Microsoft Outlook Rich Format Control controls to the form.

NOTE: The Microsoft Exchange Forms Designer that was included with Microsoft Exchange Server prior to the release of Microsoft Outlook 97 did support multiple RTF fields on a form, but this functionality is not available with Outlook forms.

NOTE: In previous versions of Microsoft Outlook, the Microsoft Outlook Rich Format Control was called the Outlook DocSite OLE Control.

