This section deals with associating form with folders and the issues that arise.
From the drop down menu select a topic.

1. In Outlook, click on Tools and select Form
2. Choose a form will be displayed, select User Templates in File System
3. The Browse option will cease to be greyed out. Click on Browse
4. Having found the new form, click on Open
5. The form is displayed. Click on Tools
6. Click on Publish to specify where to publish this form

To use a custom Outlook form in a typical folder-based form solution, there are three steps that you need to complete:

1. Publish the form in the folder or forms library where you want to use it.
2. On the Tools menu in the custom form, point to Forms, and then click Publish Form.

To do this,

1. Right-click the folder, and then click Properties.
2. In the When posting to this folder box, click your custom form, and then click OK.
3. New items that you create may use the custom form instead of the default Outlook form.
   If you have any existing items in the folder that you want to use this new form, change the Message Class field in each of the items in the folder. The Message Class field of an item tells Outlook which form to use to display the item.

You cannot directly change the Message Class field in Outlook because it is considered read-only, but you can use programming code and the Outlook object model to change the message class of the field. There are a number of techniques for changing the message class of items in a folder and utilities to help you do this.

If the form is not located in a trusted location, such as the Organisational Forms Library on an Exchange Server-based computer, Outlook displays the macro warning message to protect you from potentially malicious programming code, commonly called macro viruses. You cannot directly prevent the warning message from appearing; you must publish the form to a trusted location. For additional information about this issue and other reasons why you may receive this warning message, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: 207913 OL2000: Why Outlook Displays a Security Warning Message When You Open an Item Custom form controls lost when sent to someone else

In Outlook, controls on a form are used to display information, but the information is actually stored in fields. Therefore, for the values of the controls to be preserved, the control must be bound to an Outlook standard or user-defined field. For additional information about this issue, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: 207430 OL2000: How to Use Fields and Controls with VBScript Unexpected results from user-defined fields

User-defined fields offer flexibility in how data is structured within a folder, but this flexibility can also provide some challenges for solution developers. For additional information about how to use user-defined fields in Outlook, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: 201438 OL2000: Working With User-defined Fields in Solutions Items in a folder have different icons, abnormally sized items, Message class reverts to default

Understanding the difference between forms and items and how the two relate to each other is important when you design an Outlook solution. In most scenarios, forms are published to a location and then linked to the items in the folder. However, you can store the forms in individual items, and this can cause the behaviour of Outlook to change in many ways. For additional information about form definitions and how they relate to items, click the article numbers below to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: 207896 OL2000: Working with Form Definitions and One-Off Forms 238765 OL2000: Some Control Properties Create One-Off Forms Export contacts from external databases - map some fields to user-defined fields in a custom contact form?

This is a limitation of the Outlook Import and Export Wizard. There is no way to directly import or export data into user-defined fields. If you are familiar with Visual Basic programming, you can create a solution that programmatically imports or exports the information. For additional information about this issue and examples of how to import or export user-defined fields, click the article numbers below to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: 197654 OL2000: Cannot Import or Export User-Defined Fields 208232 OL2000: How to Programmatically Import Outlook Items from Microsoft Access 253794 OL2000: How to Programmatically Export Items to Microsoft Access Controls on a custom Outlook form but none of the control events appear to work

When you use a custom Outlook form, Outlook only supports the Click event for controls. Many controls are specifically designed to work with other events, and because these events are not supported by Outlook, the controls may not function in Outlook.
To work around this limitation, you can create a Visual Basic ActiveX component (formally called an OLE server application).

You can start the component by using the CreateObject method in a script written in VBScript. The component can display a Visual Basic form with the appropriate controls, receive the information that the user selects or types, and then automate Outlook to send any necessary information back to the Outlook form.
This technique involves many aspects of programming. For information about how to create an ActiveX component, see the documentation for Microsoft Visual Basic. For additional information about control events on Outlook custom forms, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: 231169 OL2000: Click Event Behaviour for Standard Controls Printing forms as they appear on the screen?

There is no direct way to print forms as they appear on the screen. Also, the Outlook object model does not provide more printing functionality than that which is provided by Outlook itself. To work around this limitation, you can either use another program to print Outlook information, or you can download an ActiveX control or Outlook extension to create a custom form printing solution. For additional information about how to create custom form printing solutions, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: 230512 OL2000: Outlook Does Not Print Forms as Expected Forms designed in Outlook 2000 used with previous versions of Outlook?

This is generally not a good idea. To help ensure compatibility, design the form by using the earliest version of Outlook that uses the form. For additional information about designing forms to use with more than one version of Outlook, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: 259662 OL2000: Designing Custom Forms for Different Versions of Outlook Changing the default mail message form

If you want to change the default form that is used for all items of a specific type, you need to use a utility that enables Outlook to substitute a custom form for one of the default forms. However, you can only use this utility with Outlook 2000. For additional information about this utility and how to obtain it, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: 241235 OL2000: Utility Available to Change Default Outlook Forms Change default form for any folder

If you want to change the default form for a specific folder but you cannot do it, there is a work around that enables you to indirectly set any type of form as the default form for a folder. For additional information, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: 249199 OL2000: How to Set Any Form as the Default Form for a Folder Option buttons on an Outlook form? You need to follow specific steps in order for option buttons to function in Outlook. For additional information about how option buttons work, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: 198271 OL2000: How to Use Option Buttons on an Outlook Form Forms cache The forms cache is an integral part of how Outlook works with forms. As a forms developer, it is important to have a general understanding about how the forms cache works so that you can troubleshoot potential issues that may occur. For additional information about the forms cache, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: 232303 OL2000: How the Forms Cache Works Manipulate the Message or Notes field on a form If your mail format is set to Outlook Rich Text format, Outlook provides limited support for manipulating the body of a message. However, if you use Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) format or Microsoft Word as your e-mail editor, you can create highly formatted e-mail messages. For additional information about working with the body of an item, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: 201105 OL2000: Working With the Message or Body of an Outlook Item The above applies to:

• Microsoft Outlook 2000