Is there a way to link text controls in Word 2007?

Question

I am creating a form in Word 2007, using the controls available in the Developer tab.

On my first page, I have the user enter a name into a text control. I want to have a control on the second page to automatically fill in with the same text as the first one.

Is there any way to link these controls together?

Answer 1

You can do it using VBA:

1. Give each textbox a name (in Design mode, right-click each of them and get properties and fill in the Name property)
2. Right click the first text box and choose View Code
3. Add the code at the bottom of this answer into the VBA editor (assuming you called the page 1 textbox Box1 and the page 2 textobx Box2)

Exit design mode and then type something into the textbox on page 1. You should see that the textbox on page2 has the same value.

Note that people who open the form have to have their security settings set to enable the running of macros for this to work.

Private Sub Box1_Change()
    Box2.Value = Box1.Value
End Sub

Answer 2

Word makes this maddeningly complicated.

When trying to do this myself, I found and followed this tutorial to great success: http://www.johnchapman.name/using-content-controls-to-repeat-form-fields-in-microsoft-word-2007-and-word-2010/