Setting Default Properties for a Form

For custom forms with form pages, default properties are set in the Forms Designer, from the Properties tab.

Note
Setting the default properties works differently when customizing Outlook forms with form regions. For more information, see How to: Create a Form Region.

Default properties for custom forms with form pages:

• Category  You can specify a category for your form that will help organize the forms in the Choose Form dialog box when you are selecting a form.

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

• Always use Microsoft Word as the e-mail editor  Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 uses Microsoft Office Word 2007 as the e-mail editor. However, using Word as the editor is optional in earlier versions. If you are creating forms for users who use earlier versions of Outlook, this option lets you specify Microsoft Office Word as the editor for the message portion (or control) of your form. This adds all the formatting options that are available with Word, such as the spelling 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 Office. Selecting this option uses an older architecture for using Word as the e-mail editor and does not provide exactly the same user experience as does enabling Word as the e-mail editor by clicking Options on the Tools menu. Solutions created for earlier versions using Word as the e-mail editor might not work, or might not work properly, in Office Outlook 2007.

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

  Note
  Although Word is now the e-mail editor, this setting, as applicable to Outlook forms, is only enabled if you select the Always use Microsoft Word as the e-mail editor check box. If this check box is not selected, you cannot set templates.

• Contact  When you click Contact, you have access to the Address Book. This allows you to select the names of people who are responsible for maintaining, upgrading, or providing 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. This could include instructions for the use of the form and a full description of the form's purpose. This information is displayed in the About dialog box on the Help menu of the form and in the Properties dialog box for the form.

• Version  Allows you to 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  Allows you to set a form number. This is a free-form text field and does not affect Outlook behavior in any way.

• Change Large Icon  Clicking this button opens a 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   Clicking this button opens a 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 created with the form.

• Send form definition with item  Specifies that the form definition is included when you send the form. This causes the form to be much larger than if this option is not selected. Selecting this check box creates a self-contained form that allows your recipients to view the form even if they do not have access to the same forms library as the sender.

  Note
  This option, because of security improvements in Office Outlook 2007, is not recommended nor 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 rather than to include the form definition with the item. If you do send the form with the item, you can reenable 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 will see a Warning dialog box. They have the option of disabling the macros because the form is not published. Harmful macros could delete or copy their files, or send e-mail 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 have created a form that is intended only 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. This causes your reply form to be used instead of the default reply form.