Streamline The Creation And Distribution of Interactive PDF Forms

An interactive PDF form is a great way of capturing information from a group of people and Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional makes the creation of these forms a breeze. It also has features for distributing the form and then tracking people's responses.

One of the main advantages of using PDF forms, as against, web-based forms is that the PDF will always look the same regardless of which operating system or web browser is being used.

One also has a wider variety of options when it comes to distributing PDF forms: for example, email, CD or DVD. Email, in particular offers a very direct distribution channel.

Forms are not new to Acrobat: the feature has been available since version 3. However, Acrobat 8 Professional has seen a great enhancement to the way interactive forms are handled.

Forms can be now be created from scratch in Acrobat. Just choose Create New Forms from the Forms menu and choose one of the built-in templates. The form is then created using a utility called Adobe Life Cycle Designer then saved as a PDF file.

When using forms created in other applications as the basis of an Acrobat form, you can now choose "Run Form Field Recognition" form the "Forms" menu and Acrobat will examine the layout of the form and create interactive form fields automatically.

You can also use a printed form as the basis for an interactive PDF form. Just choose the Scan From Paper option when creating your new form.

After you have created the basic form and perhaps had Acrobat automatically generate your text fields, you can add all the usual form controls, such as check-boxes, radio buttons and combo boxes. Then, to complete the form, you can add a submit button.

The advanced menu in Acrobat 8 Professional contains a new feature ("Enable Usage Rights in Acrobat Reader") which allows Acrobat Reader users to fill out your form and then save the form data. Normally, this can only be done with a full version of Acrobat Professional.

To send the form to group of recipients via email, just choose "Distribute Form" from the "Form" menu. A Microsoft Outlook address book can be used to generate a mailing list or you can just type or paste in a list of recipients.

Acrobat 8 Professional now contains a facility for storing each of the returned form in one place, called a dataset. As you open each returned form, a dialogue box appears prompting you to add the form data to the dataset.

To complete your project, after you have received back all the forms you distributed, you simply open the Acrobat dataset and click on the export button to save it as a .csv file. You can then import this file into Microsoft Excel or Access for storage and/or analysis.

By: Andrew Whiteman

The writer of this article is a developer and trainer with Macresource Computer Solutions, an independent computer training company offering Adobe Acrobat training courses at their central London training centre.

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