Writer Guide

Read-only documents
Having created your form, you want whoever is using it to be able to
access the information stored in the database, or complete the form,
without changing the layout. There is an easy way to do this: make the
document read-only.
Select Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org > Security> Open this
document in read only mode.
Fine-tuning database access permissions
By default, when a database is accessed from a form, any changes can
be made to it: records can be added, deleted and amended. You may
not want that behavior. For example, you may want users to be able
only to add new records or to be prohibited from deleting existing
records.
In design mode, right-click on a form control and select Form from the
pop-up menu. On the Data tab of the Form Properties dialog box are
a number of options: Allow additions, Allow deletions, Allow
modifications and Add data only. Set each of these to Yes or No to
control the access users have to the data source.
Individual fields can also be protected. This might be useful if you
wanted a user to be able to modify some parts of a record but only
view others, such as a stock list where item descriptions are fixed and
quantities can be modified.
To make an individual field read-only, in design mode, right-click on the
form control within the document and select Control from the pop-up
menu. Select the General tab and set Read-only to Yes .
Form control formatting options
You can customize the way form controls look and behave in a number
of ways. These are all accessed in Design mode. Right-click on the form
control, select Control from the pop-up menu and select the General
tab in the Properties dialog box.
• Set a label for the control in the Label field. Some form controls,
such as push buttons and option buttons, have visible labels that
can be set. Others, such as text boxes, do not.
• Set whether the form control will print out if the document is
printed with the Print option.
• Use the Font setting to set the font, typeface and size for a field.
488 OpenOffice.org 3 Writer Guide