Knowledge Base

Use TextBox form control to work around 255-character limit in Word 97

Article ID: 159261

Article Last Modified on 8/10/2007

APPLIES TO

Microsoft Word 97 Standard Edition

This article was previously published under Q159261

SUMMARY

The Word FILLIN field prompts you for text that is used as the FILLIN field result. The maximum number of characters that can be entered in a FILLIN field is 255. In addition, the Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications InputBox statement is restricted to this 255 character limitation.

Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications allows you to construct a dialog box using the UserForm command. The form can contain text box controls into which you can type more than 255 characters. This article describes how to create and display the form.

MORE INFORMATION

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For more information about the support options that are available and about how to contact Microsoft, visit the following Microsoft Web site:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=fh;EN-US;CNTACTMS

Creating the user form

Create the form using the following steps:

On the Tools menu, point to Macro, and then click Visual Basic Editor.
In the Visual Basic project window, click Normal.

The form will be available to all documents.
On the Insert menu, click UserForm.
Click the TextBox control on the Toolbox toolbar and then click the form.

The text box control appears in the default size. Drag a sizing handle to resize the control or drag the control to move it to a new location.
Click the CommandButton control on the Toolbox toolbar and then click the form.

The command button control appears in the default size. Drag a sizing handle to resize the control or drag the control to move it to a new location.

Repeat this step to add a second CommandButton control.
Select the first command button control and then click Code on the View menu.

In the Code window, type Selection.TypeText TextBox1.Text, so that your code looks like this:

       Private Sub CommandButton1_Click ()
          Selection.TypeText TextBox1.Text
          'When you click this button on the form, the contents of the text
          'box is inserted into the active document at the location of the
          'insertion point.
       End sub

On the View menu, click Object to return to the form.
Select the second command button control and then click Code on the View menu.

In the Code window, type End, so that your code looks like this:

       Private Sub CommandButton2_Click ()
          End
          'When you click this button after you click the first command
          'button, the form is closed. If you click this button instead of
          'the first command button, the form is canceled.
       End sub

On the File menu, click Save Normal.

Displaying the form

To display the form, switch to Word, and then do the following:

On the Tools menu, point to Macro, and then click Macros.
In the Macro Name box, type FillInForm and then click Create.

In the Code window, type UserForm1.Show, so that your code looks like this:

      Sub FillInForm()
         UserForm1.Show
      End Sub

Save and close the macro.
Close the Visual Basic Editor.
You can now run the macro from Word to display the form.

If you want default text to appear in the text box, create the following initialize event for the UserForm object. To do this, use the following steps:

Double-click the form.
From the Object drop-down list, select UserForm.
From the Procedure drop-down list, select Initialize.

In the Code window, type the following code

      Private Sub UserForm_Initialize()
         TextBox1.Text = "<default text>"
      End Sub

where <default text> is the text you want to appear in the text box when the form appears.

For additional information, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

173707 OFF97: How to Run Sample Code from Knowledge Base Articles

REFERENCES

For more information about getting help with Visual Basic for Applications, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

163435 VBA: Programming Resources for Visual Basic for Applications

Additional query words: wordcon vb vba vbe

Keywords: kbhowto kbinfo kbmacroexample kbusage KB159261

Microsoft KB Archive/159261

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