Tips for using CH61/Stewardship forms on disk.

 

     These notes assume a basic working knowledge of Windows and MS Word.  The documents/files on the disk labeled “Directions and Forms for Preparation of CH61/61A – Stewardship Plans” were created in Microsoft Word 97.  The files are grouped in three folders as follows:

 

DIRECTIONS:

            Appendix C Forest Types.doc

            Appendix D References.doc

            Appendix E Silviculture.doc

            New Directions.doc

            Stewardship Data Sheet.doc

 

SAMPLE PLAN:

            Front Page Sample.doc

            Landowner Goals Sample.doc

            MANAGEMENT PRACTICES sample.doc

            Overview Sample.doc

            SigSample.doc

            STAND DESCRIPTIONS Sample.doc

 

NEW PLAN FORMS:

            CERTIFICATE FORM.dot

            FRONT PAGE FORM revis.dot

            Front Page Overflow form revis.dot

            MANAGEMENT PRACTICES FORM 1.dot

            MANAGEMENT PRACTICES FORM 2 revis.dot

            OVERVIEW FORM revis.dot

            SIGNATURE PAGE revis.dot

            STAND DESCRIPTIONS FORM 1.dot

            STAND DESCRIPTIONS FORM 2 revis.dot

            STEWARDSHIP ISSUES.doc

            Stewardship Planning Worksheet.doc

 

(It would probably be a good idea to copy these folders to your hard drive and use the disk as a backup.)

 

     Files in the NEW PLAN FORMS folder with the word “form” in the title, a yellow bar atop the icon, and the suffix “.dot” are template files.  When you open one of these files by double clicking on the icon from within Windows Explorer (the file managing program in Windows 95 or 98), it spins off (opens up) a document based on the template, ready for you to enter data. Make sure what you are about to work with has “Microsoft Word – Document-1”  on the top line of the Word window.  (It might say Document-2 or Document-3 if you have opened other new documents during this session). Be careful.  If you open a template file by using the “file” – “open” command sequence within Word, it will open the template itself (you will see the name of the file with the suffix  .dot at the top of your screen).  If you type into this file you will be changing the actual template, not typing into a blank copy of the template.

 

     The fields where you enter the data are shaded.  When the cursor is in the shaded area, you may type in the information.  Then press the tab key to move the cursor to the next field.  You can also use the mouse to move the cursor to any field you wish to work in.  You can also go back to a field and delete what you wrote and type in something new.  Because the document is “protected” you will not be able to type anywhere on the form except within the gray form fields.

 

     Using most of the forms is pretty straightforward.   Fill them out, and print.  However, the section of the plan for the stand descriptions and management practices doesn’t lend itself well to the use of templates because of the variable amount of space needed to describe each stand or management practice.  None the less, two templates were created for each of those two sections, offering several options. The templates are:

 

MANAGEMENT PRACTICES FORM 1.dot STAND DESCRIPTIONS FORM 1.dot

MANAGEMENT PRACTICES FORM 2 revis.dot     STAND DESCRIPTIONS FORM 2 revis.dot

 

     Here are some special instructions for their use.  The following applies to both the Stand Descriptions and the Management Practices forms.

 

 

 

Option One:  First, open FORM 2. Don’t enter any stand information, but instead, tab down to the “owner” and “town” fields at the bottom of the page.   Enter the name and town information for your landowner in those fields, then print the page.  You will use this sheet as “stationery” on which to print out the stand info.  Now, open a new blank document (not one of the forms) and format the margins as follows (select Page Setup from the File dropdown menu): For Stand Descriptions: Top = 1.4”, Bottom = 1.9”, Left margin = 0.7”, Right margin = 0.6”. Format tabs by going to the Format dropdown menu at the top of the screen, then select “Tabs,” then type the positions, one by one, into the “tab stop position” box, choosing “set” after typing in each one.  Place “center” tab stops at .44”, 1.06, 1.63, 2.13, 3.13, 4.31, 5.13, and 6.31”.  For the Management Practices, set margins: Top = 2.0”, Bottom = 1.5”, Left margin = 0.7”, Right margin = 0.6”. Place “center” tab stops at .2”, .69, 1.2, 2.88, 4.44, 5.19, 5.88, and 6.81”. (The center tab symbol ^ will appear in the ruler atop the page for each tab you set.) Now type the stand information and print it out on the “stationery” you printed earlier. [Consider creating blank templates with this formatting for future use.]

 

Option 2:  Open FORM 2. (make sure you are working with a “document” and not a “template” (.dot) version.  See above)  What you see looks like it is designed for only one stand.  There are a series of shaded boxes along the top for the stand data (OBJ, stand no., type, acres, etc.) followed by a single large text box field for the stand narrative.  After filling in the stand info and typing the first stand narrative, skip a couple of lines (press the “enter” key), then type in the stand information for the second stand, using the space bar to space the entries.  If you use the tab key, the cursor will jump down to the “Owner(s)” field at the bottom of the page.  Using the space bar is tedious, but it doesn’t require printing the page twice, as in option 1, or modifying the design of the form, as with the last option. 

 

Option 3:  In this option, use FORM 1, which is currently laid out to hold 4 stands.  You will be resizing the text boxes, and either cutting or copying and pasting the form fields and text boxes to adjust for the number of stands that fit on any particular page.  This option involves more manipulation, but may be faster once you get the hang of making the adjustments.

 

     First, open FORM 1 so that it gives you a temporary title such as “Document1” (see above).  Next, “unlock” or “unprotect” the document by clicking on the padlock icon in the forms toolbar.   (If no padlock is visible in a toolbar at the top of your screen, go to VIEW dropdown menu, select TOOLBARS, then select FORMS).  Having unlocked, or unprotected the document, it is now a normal document.  It will no longer act like a form in that pressing the tab key now shifts the existing text over.  To move the cursor where you want, use the mouse or the arrow keys.  You can still type in the shaded form fields, and typing in the text box won’t push text outside the box down until you fill up the box.  The box will expand if you continue to type after the box is full, pushing text outside the box down as it expands. If your stand narrative does not fill up the text box, you can shrink the box to fit what you have written.  Move the mouse arrow over the bottom line of the text box until the arrow becomes two short horizontal lines.  Now left-click the mouse, holding down the left button as you drag the bottom of the box upward to the last line of your narrative.  Release the mouse, and your text box is resized.

     The fields and boxes below will also move up as you shrink the box.  You can get rid of extra form fields and text boxes you don’t need by selecting them with the mouse and deleting.  Or you can add more stands by copying and pasting a set of unused fields.  The final step will be to insert or delete a few blank lines or fields, or to expand or shrink the size of the last text box in order to get the text at the bottom of the page (the part that has the landowner, town and abbreviation definitions) to fall in the right place.  Leave the document unlocked.  Print.  Save.

 

Warning!  Do not open the document, type in data and text, and then unprotect the document.  If you do that and then for some unknown reason decide to re-lock your document, everything you typed before you unprotected will be erased!  Options 1 and 2 do not involve unlocking the document at all.