You might create a form on a Web page that allows users to search a database on a Web server (Web server: A computer that hosts Web pages and responds to requests from browsers. Also known as an HTTP server, a Web server stores files whose URLs begin with http://.) for a specific book. The user types the name of the book into your form and clicks the Submit button that you placed on the form. The information is sent to the Web server and the database is searched. The results are sent back to the user and appear in another Web page in their Web browser (Web browser: Software that interprets HTML files, formats them into Web pages, and displays them. A Web browser, such as Microsoft Internet Explorer, can follow hyperlinks, transfer files, and play sound or video files that are embedded in Web pages.).

You might also create a customer survey. When the user submits the form (by clicking the Submit button that you placed on the form), the information is sent to a database on your Web server for later use.

You create a Web form in the same way you normally create a Web page, and then you use the Web Tools toolbar (toolbar: A bar with buttons and options that you use to carry out commands. To display a toolbar, press ALT and then SHIFT+F10.) to add form controls (control: A graphical user interface object, such as a text box, check box, scroll bar, or command button, that lets users control the program. You use controls to display data or choices, perform an action, or make the user interface easier to read.). Microsoft Word provides several standard Web form controls. When you add your first control, Word inserts a Top of Form boundary above the control and a Bottom of Form boundary below the control. These boundaries appear when you design the form and will not appear when the page is viewed in a Web browser (Web browser: Software that interprets HTML files, formats them into Web pages, and displays them. A Web browser, such as Microsoft Internet Explorer, can follow hyperlinks, transfer files, and play sound or video files that are embedded in Web pages.) You can add other controls to the form by placing them within those boundaries. You can have more than one form on the same Web page. Each form exists between its own boundaries.

After you insert form controls (control: A graphical user interface object, such as a text box, check box, scroll bar, or command button, that lets users control the program. You use controls to display data or choices, perform an action, or make the user interface easier to read.) on your Web page, you can set their properties (property: A named attribute of a control, a field, or an object that you set to define one of the object's characteristics (such as size, color, or screen location) or an aspect of its behavior (such as whether the object is hidden).). The properties of a form control allow you to manage how data is communicated to a Web server (Web server: A computer that hosts Web pages and responds to requests from browsers. Also known as an HTTP server, a Web server stores files whose URLs begin with http://.). For some controls, the properties determine how the controls look on the Web page. To set the properties for a control, click the control, click Properties , and then set options in the Properties dialog box.