Create a web page using word?

cunnins4 · 01-08-2007 2:14pm #1

Hi guys, i've been asked to make a simple form to be put on my company's website. I don't have a clue about web design but i've managed to make up the form and it looks exactly as i want it to, but now i don't know how to submit the data entered onto the form. How do i go about doing that?

henbane · 01-08-2007 2:18pm

The Basics

nude_hamster · 01-08-2007 3:12pm

depending on what you want to do with the data from the form you may want to look up something like php or some other type of scripting/programming language.

And are you creating this webpage is Microsoft word?? not a great idea, just be careful if you are using it, word uses hidden characters for new lines and stuff like that, doesnt mix well with html

if you want to use a basic text editor for this, try notepad

GoneShootin · 01-08-2007 3:16pm

I think you might be better off using a form builder/sender service rather than trying to code this yourself. Given as you say you ain't got a notion. Processing the sent form will require some bit of scripting knowledge. You can go ahead of learn all of this of course, but if you're looking to get the job done quickly, then something like these may be of help:

http://www.bravenet.com/webtools/emailfwd/

http://www.freedback.com [3rd party that host and process the form for you]

http://www.mycontactform.com [check pricing - free = 20submissions /month]

http://www.tele-pro.co.uk/scripts/contact_form/ [generate the script required - if your web hosting account has php available for example, you can use the php version]

cunnins4 · 01-08-2007 4:22pm

cheers for the replies lads. I'm a temp in the my place for the summer and the tech section won't do the job because it's "too small". It started off with me simply making up the form on word. Then it was to be distributed online. Fair enough. Then to try using a load of drop down boxes (the irritating part began). Then to completely automate it.

My boss thinks because i'm an engineering student that i can do all of this easily, but she really doesn't get it! i'm trying my best. I've had nothing to do all week, so i don't mind trying to teach myself a bit of this stuff-it keeps me busy! unfortunately i have limited web access (for some odd reason boards.ie, rte.ie, daft.ie and the college homepages are the only thing i can access!) so teaching myself isn't all that easy. I'm probably just gonna mess with it for a couple of days, admit defeat and then just whack it on the web and do it the good old fashioned way! (there'll only be about 40 forms to be processed, so not too bad!)

anywho, i'll keep plugging away at it. I know word is a useless tool for this stuff, but it's all i've got. Cheers lads.

ressem · 01-08-2007 9:36pm

You haven't said how the results are to be stored. If it's sufficient to just email the results to an address...

From http://www.w3schools.com/html/tryit.asp?filename=tryhtml_form_mail

Paste the code below into notepad and save it with a .html extension.

<html>
<body>
<form action="MAILTO:youremailhere@example.com" method="post" enctype="text/plain">

<h3>This form sends an e-mail to W3Schools.</h3>
Name:<br>
<input type="text" name="name"
value="yourname" size="20">
<br>
Mail:<br>
<input type="text" name="mail"
value="yourmail" size="20">
<br>
Comment:<br>
<input type="text" name="comment"
value="yourcomment" size="40">
<br><br>
<input type="submit" value="Send">
<input type="reset" value="Reset">

</form>
</body>
</html>

I would suggest asking permission to download and install a program like NVU to edit and layout the page though.

nvu-1.0-win32-installer-full.exe from http://www.nvu.com/download.php

cunnins4 · 01-08-2007 10:40pm

thanks for that. i need it to save into a .txt file and i can then import the data into excel to compile a spreadsheet of all the forms. I'm gonna try to email that nvu installer to myself in work and see. It's one of those things where the tech lads will refuse because they'll look bad for not doing it if I end up actually finishing it. I don't mind either way-it's good experience to learn these sorts of things.

thanks again.

highlydebased · 01-08-2007 10:44pm

Get a hold of form-mailer. Its a CGI file. You'll need to upload it with the contact page...and insert some variables in the form

It might be outdated, but I still use it. There are some modern PHP versions now available I believe

Liam Byrne · 02-08-2007 1:09pm

Any HTML I've seen created by Word is a complete disaster! Bad & bloated code, non-compliant, not cross-browser, not best practices, bad for integration (absolute positioning, navigation, etc).

Frontpage is bad, but Word is a disaster! Run Word through Dreamweaver's "Clean Up HTML" utitlity and it'll halve the size of the page code!

If you can avoid it at all, use a package designed for creating proper web pages.....since what you're doing is relatively basic, even the free ones will do it properly.

cunnins4 · 02-08-2007 1:39pm

I know it's not ideal, but unfortunately it's all i've got. I've nearly finished all i need from it: the form's complete, when i click on submit it emails the data from the free text boxes, but it won't email the data from the drop down boxes? How do i get it to do that?

thanks again lads.

here's the code i've been using for the drop down boxes:

<b>4. Gender:</b>
<SELECT>
<option value="Male">Male
<option value="Female">Female
</SELECT>

there's a few other drop down boxes with other stuff in them and i need the data to be exactly what's in the boxes otherwise there's no point in automating the form. I used the code ressem posted above to get the emails sending.

Cheers lads

Thomas_S_Hunterson · 02-08-2007 1:49pm

cunnins4 wrote:

here's the code i've been using for the drop down boxes:

<b>4. Gender:</b>
<SELECT>
<option value="Male">Male
<option value="Female">Female
</SELECT>

I think that should be
<b>4. Gender:</b>
<SELECT>
<option value="Male">Male</option>
<option value="Female">Female</option>
</SELECT>

cunnins4 · 02-08-2007 2:01pm

thanks, i got it working just there - had to add a name to it so it's now

<SELECT NAME="Gender">
.
.
.
.

and it emails fine. Now i have to figure out how to synch it all with excel! wahey!

GoneShootin · 02-08-2007 3:09pm

If your using "mailto:" as your form action, it will only work for those people with an email client with an email account installed. So for people that solely use web based email accounts it won't pan out.

cunnins4 · 02-08-2007 3:14pm

the entire company uses outlook, all using the exact same setup, so it should be fine. There's only about 40 forms to process, so even if some of them don't pan out i can just enter them manually. I think this has become more of a novelty and something to keep me occupied at this stage! I've feck all else to do, so i don't mind!

I've set up a macro on excel that takes in the email and sorts it into the proper order, and in outlook i've a filter on my email to put the automated responses into a seperate folder, so everything's still running MUCH more efficiently than the previous way of doing it which was manual and sifting through a load of paper work to get this information.

Thanks for the help guys!

Create a web page using word?

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