Creating Custom Forms Although the standard Outlook forms are often good enough, there are times when you'll wish the form had different fields. | Team LiB Creating Custom Forms Although the standard Outlook forms are often good enough there are times when you ll wish the form had different fields. You might want to remove some of the default fields add some of your own or just rearrange what s there. You might want to create a boilerplate message to use in response to inquiries or preaddress a message form to a group of people with whom you often correspond. You can do all of this and more using custom forms. You can create templates and forms containing boilerplate text by editing the fields in the form. But when you want to add or remove fields or use scripting with the form you need to use Design mode to open Outlook forms so that they can be edited. You don t need a special program to use Design mode it s part of every form included with Outlook and is enabled when you tell Outlook you want to design a form. You can open a form in Design mode two ways by using Tools Forms Design a Form and selecting a form from the dialog or when a form is already open by using its Tools Forms Design this Form menu option. In any case when it s a message form it will look similar to Figure . Figure . A message form in Design mode. Hidden pages have parentheses around their names. Drag fields from the Field Chooser to add them to a form or create your own fields. You need to use Outlook as your email editor to design email forms or templates. When Word is your editor you can t go into Design mode for email forms. When forms are in Design mode the Form Design toolbar is visible see Figure . This toolbar has many of the design tools you ll use the most. The Form and Layout menus also contain design tools. Figure . The Forms toolbar has many of the commands you ll need when you customize your forms. Customize the Forms toolbar to add the Run This Form button to it. Doing so makes it easier to test your forms as you design them. Along with the Form Design toolbar you ll also use the Field Chooser and Control
