Your organization may create or acquire OLE custom controls from various manufacturers and provide the controls for you to use in Lotus Notes. Some controls may not provide online Help for their application. Also, there are certain controls you have to do some programming to use. You can insert these into Lotus Notes manually, but you can't do much with them without programming.

Click any of these topics:

• To create a control
• To edit a control
• To copy an entire control, a picture of a control, or data from a control
• To expand a control
• To allow changes to a control while in read mode
• To delete a control from a document
• To remove a control from the list of controls

1. With the document in Edit mode, click in a rich-text field.

2. Click Create > Object.

3. Do one of the following:

• Click Control, then select a control from the list.
• Click Control, then Add Control to list. Select a control, click OK, then select the control from the list.

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To edit a control

1. With the document in Edit mode, click the control object.

2. Click any of the following from the Applet menu:

	Option	Description
	Object Properties	Lets you access Lotus Notes properties for the control, including the name of the control. You can also specify other settings, such as alignment.
	Cut Copy	Acts upon the entire object. To cut or copy selected text within the object, use the Edit menu.
	Copy External	Lets you copy the control to a non-Lotus Notes application
	Associate file to object	Opens a dialog box where you can specify a file path. This feature is for use by Domino™ designers, and requires use of the Lotus Notes Application Programming Interface (API). For example, a designer who includes a media player object may want to associate music files with the control object. For more information on design, see Lotus Domino Designer Help if you have it installed. Or, go to Lotus Documentation on the Web to download or view Lotus Domino Designer Help.
	Edit Events & Properties	Gives you access to both the control's properties and Lotus Notes properties. Tip If you are a designer, you can modify the behavior of the control by changing its events using LotusScript. For example, you can modify the Click event to open a message box when a user clicks the control. For more information on both types of properties, see Modifying an OLE object or ActiveX custom control using Lotus Notes properties.
	Show Property Pages	Displays the control's own (not Lotus Notes) properties in a dialog box
	Design Mode	Lets you work with the control in either Design Mode or Run Mode. As a designer, you can modify the object in either mode, but Run Mode shows you what other users of the object will see.
	Freeze Events	Freezes or unfreezes the control's events. If you are a designer, this can be useful when you are modifying the control.

3. Click anywhere in the document outside the control object.

4. To save the new data, click File > Save.

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To copy an entire control, a picture of a control, or data from a control

1. With the document in Edit mode, click the control and select the data you want to copy.

2. Do one of the following:

• Click Applet > Copy to create an editable copy of the control.
• Click Applet > Copy External to create a picture of the control.
• Click Edit > Copy to create a copy of selected data in the control.

4. Click Edit > Paste.

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To expand a control

1. With the document in Edit mode, click the control object.

2. Click Applet > Object Properties.

3. In the Applet properties box, click one of the following:

• Size object to Window
• Size object below field

5. Save and close the document.

6. Reopen the document in Edit mode.

Lotus Notes

• When you click Size object to Window, then open a document in Edit mode, the control expands to fill the entire IBM Lotus Notes window. With the object expanded, you cannot view any other information in the document.
• When you click Size object below field, then open the document in Edit mode:
  
  The control object expands to fill the area of the Lotus Notes window below the layout region. If the document does not contain a layout region, the object expands to fill the entire Lotus Notes window.

  If the Lotus Notes document contains information below the layout region, you cannot view that information while the object is expanded.

  If the document contains two or more layout regions, the object expands below the first layout region. You cannot view the other layout regions.

To allow changes to a control while in Read mode

You can tell Lotus Notes to allow changes to a control object from Read mode.

After you have set this property, you can change the object and print the changes while in Read mode, but to save changes to the object, you must edit and save the document.

Note Some control objects do not render anything for display in Read mode. Setting this property forces the object to display.

1. With the document in Edit mode, click the control object.

2. Click Applet > Object Properties.

3. In the Applet properties box, select "Run object when reading document."

4. Close the Applet properties box.

5. Save and close the document.

6. Reopen the document.

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To delete a control from a document

Edit the document, drag over the control object and click Edit > Delete. In the message that says the operation cannot be undone, click Yes.

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To remove a control from the list of controls

When you remove a control from the list, it also removes the control from the Windows registry. You can add a control back to the list and restore it to the registry at any time.

1. In a rich-text field, click Create > Object.

2. Click Control.

3. In the list, select the control you want to remove and click Remove Control from List.

4. Click OK in the warning dialog box that appears.

5. (Optional) To restore the control to the list and registry, click Add Control to List, browse the operating system to locate the necessary .ocx file, and click OK.

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See Also

Sharing information with other applications
Object linking and embedding
Embedding data in a Lotus Notes document

Glossary