I attempted to use the suggested method shown by example in the help file but
was unable to get it to work. Any other suggestion or are you able to provide
a little more walk through than what the help file attempts to do?

"Hollis Paul" wrote:

In article ,
=?Utf-8?B?S3J5ZXI=?= wrote:
Can someone help me with this?

If you look through the Outlook objects with the Outlook object browser
(F2 in the script code editor), I think you will find one called body.
That is the one to use for the message control.

I seem to have to do this because custom forms do not seem to show up
in the reading pane or preview pane

I don't think this is correct. I suspect that your custom fields are
not showing up because you are not defining the controls in the read
page properly. To get custom controls to automatically show data, that
was entered in the compose page, in the read page, you need to create
the common controls first in the unsplit form, then split the form and
create the unique features. I could be wrong about this, as it has
been a long time since I played with split forms--there is really very
little need for a split form, and it mostly happens by accident because
Outlook 2003 opens a form in split mode when you first choose design a
form. That is when you should deselect the Separate Read Form option
on the forms menu if you do not really, really need the split form
feature.

--
Hollis Paul
Mukilteo, WA USA