Creating PDF Forms

[Music] one of the most powerful and most popular features of acrobat is its ability to create interactive forms to collect data no other program makes it this easy to create and distribute forms for any purpose in this chapter we'll explore how to build forms properly and then distribute them both by email as well as via acrobat.com then we'll learn how to collect the responses and analyze them in acrobat as well as in other programs like Microsoft Excel nobody likes to fill out forms and worse than filling out a form is trying to figure out what somebody else wrote in the form in the first place then there's the matter of dealing with the actual data how do you use it how do you get it into your data workflow turning flat paper forms into digital fillable forms can save hours of time and thousands of dollars of cost managing manually entered data that's why it's so amazing that acrobat gives you the forms wizard a tool that can convert a normal flat form into a fillable PDF form almost instantly if your form was created on a computer and you still have the original file you're a step ahead of the game and it doesn't even matter what program created the form in the first place the base form can be created in almost any program that can export or print to the PDF format the samples used in this lesson were built in Word 2010 and Adobe in design CS5 no special feature were used in creating the forms they're basically just words and lines exported to the PDF format but before you start working to create a new form layout you should know that acrobat's form wizard doesn't treat every form design equally to demonstrate what I mean I built the same form four different ways we'll open each one in acrobat and run them through the forms wizard to see how it deals with the differences open the file form design one.pdf from the chapter 6 folder here's a basic form you've probably seen a million of them it's an application to join a mailing list it contains lines for the user to enter text information like their name and address as well as questions that you can answer with a check mark or an X notice how one question is either a yes or no answer and the other allows you to choose one or both options at the moment the form is static it doesn't allow you to enter any information on the screen using the text selection tool or the Grabber hand to fill out this form you'd have to print it out first and then fill it out manually with a pencil or a pen to turn this static form into a fillable form click tools open the forms panel and click create the form wizard will then walk you through the steps to convert the form you can choose to convert the current document or one on your hard driver Network or create Crea a form using a scanner we'll check out this option in an upcoming lesson let's choose to convert the current document click next and then click next again to continue with the current document the form wizard then kicks into high gear scanning the form design and trying to figure out where all the data fields are and what kind of data they should contain when it's done this dialogue box appears informing you that when you click okay you'll be entering form editing mode click okay to continue when the dialogue box disappears you'll be able to see how acrobat has inserted the blue form fields in each line of the form notice how each field is named for the data element requested and how each field appears to be the same size as the line appearing next to the data element for this form design the conversion was pretty accurate but if you switch over to preview mode you'll see a couple of places where it made a mistake in preview you can test the form fields and any Dynamic element element in the form click in a field and type some text notice how the blue color momentarily disappears the color is actually not part of the field it's merely a mechanism to indicate that the form has fillable Fields it's turned on by default but you can disable it by clicking this button here overall acrobat did a great job with the entire form except for the last two questions if you click in the yes field you can enter an X but you can also enter an X in the no field it's not a huge problem but to prevent users from checking both answers these fields should have been created as a special field called a radio button using a radio button you can set up a field to automatically toggle off when a user selects a different answer in the same question we'll explore the proper use of radio buttons later well we've seen how successful acrobat was converting this particular form let's check out one of my other variations open the file form design 2.pdf from the chapter 6 folder this form is a slight variation on the last form I move the data elements below the line the advantage of this design is that it gives the user more space to fill in the information I also substituted the underlines for the yes and no questions and the email and mail question for checkboxes let's see how acrobat handles the difference select tools and click the create button again go ahead and click next and next again when the conversion process is done go ahead and click okay again to enter form editing mode as you can see acrobat didn't have as much success converting this form as it did the last one it succeeded putting Fields with the name and address Fields but then missed the city state and email elements switch to preview mode but the one place where it did succeed is with our check boxes notice this time we actually have radio buttons and checkboxes as you can see if you choose one option for the radio button it automatically toggles off the other option for a checkbox you can actually turn them on and turn them off let's try one of the other design designs select file and open and choose form design three and click open this time I added rectangular fields for each of the data elements let's see how acrobat handles this design click tools and create click next and next again and click okay to continue overall this design seems to have gotten the best results check out your preview mode again each of the text Fields seems to be working fine the yes and no Fields seem to be working and the checkboxes are all working finally the last variation of the form can be found in form Design 4 in the chapter 6 folder go ahead and open it this design features a tabular form where the data elements are arranged in a table let's see how acrobat likes this design click tools and create and click next and then click okay for some reason acrobat missed the city and the zip fields in this design but it did get us almost 90% of the way there I'm not too concerned about the success in this design because these fields would be easy to add manually we'll show you how to do that later as you can see the forms wizard did better depending on how the form was designed by designing or redesigning your form properly you could convert it into a fillable form quickly and easily converting digital forms into fillable forms with a forms wizard can be a lifesaver it won't be totally perfect every time and it won't totally eliminate manual intervention but it often will get you most of the way to the goal and save you hours of tedious work paper based forms are every everywhere we fill them out at the doctor's office at the dentist's office we fill them out to get a job and even when you lose a job you fill out forms for warranty information and for magazine subscriptions most of the time I bite my lip and just fill them out but every so often I pull out my scanner and I convert a flat paper form into a digital fillable form in acrobat it's especially the case with forms that are longer and that require a lot of writing you know the kind tell us a little bit about yourself in a 100 words or less sometimes a customer doesn't even have the form and you need to get it to them how do you send them the form by facts have you ever seen the quality of most faxes and then how does the customer get it back to you fax it again are you cringing as much as I am if for no other reason but just to get the form to the customer at high quality you have to convert your paper forms to PDF then you can at least send them the form by email or host it on your website but don't stop there the form wizard can even convert scan forms into fillable forms that's right literally in just a few seconds you can turn your old-fashioned paper forms into a live fillable form if you have a scanner open the file paper form.pdf from the chapter 6 folder this is the original file for the paper form that I'll be using on my scanner if you want to follow along along do this select file print print this form to letter size paper once it appears on your printer you can slip the paper right into the scanner or you can do what I did I trimmed it down to the actual size you can use these Crop Marks in the corner here as your guide if you don't have a scanner click tools open the forms panel and click create select the first option to browse to a file and click next click browse and select scan form. jpeg from the chapter 6 folder click open the jpeg contains the image of the form we're about to scan so when you see me scanning the document go ahead and click the next button this will engage the form Wizard and perform almost the exact same task that will happen when I'm scanning for anybody who's going to scan the file go ahead and click cancel go ahead and place the form on your scanner and click the create button choose scan a paper form and click next if you have more than one scanner or more than one scanner driver go ahead and select the proper scanner driver in the pull down list and you can choose the color mode for your particular document in this case we've got a black and white document but if you're not sure of what color mode you should select you can always select autodetect color mode or click on the custom button and then manually set your options this screen is a Windows only feature on the Macintosh you'll be able to scan your document you just won't be able to select a color mode or adjust the resolution or the size as you can when you click the custom settings on Windows if you're still waiting for the sample form to print you can go ahead and pause the moving now and wait until you're ready to proceed if you're ready go ahead and click autodetect color mode and let acrobat make the decision for you when you click the button acrobat should take over your scanner scan the document and start up the form's wizard since this form only has one side we can go ahead and click okay indicating that the scan is complete this will activate the form's wizard which will then recognize the form fields and add them to our form a dialogue box appears telling us that when we click okay will be in form editing mode go ahead and click okay let's go ahead and zoom into to 100% as you can see the forms wizard did a great job it recognized all the fields except for one the State field in this case it made a slight error thinking that the state and zip were one field notice the name it says state izip it mistook this vertical bar as a letter I and inserted in the field name this would be an easy thing to fix the accuracy of your conversion depends on a lot of factors including the physical quality of the form as well as its design not to mention the capabilities of the scanner itself you can try to eliminate as many variables in this equation as possible use a clean form that has no writing or marks or other smudges on it you can clean the scanner bed and try to place the form as straight as possible on the scanner before you start but if you slip up and make a mistake all is not lost the wizard can do amazing things even with a form that's scanned at an angle if you don't have a scanner you can see the actual results by opening the file scanning badly from the chapter 6 folder here you see the actual form rotated on the scanner bed if you navigate back to page one you'll see what the form wizard can do even when it scans a form at an angle if you want to experiment along with me go ahead and place your form a skew on your scanner 5 or 10° is sufficient now when you're ready let's go ahead and scan it like we did earlier choose create from the forms panel and select scan a paper form click next go ahead and choose autodetect color mode again when the scanner is done with the form go ahead and click okay to activate the form Wizard and then click okay to enter forms editing mode Zoom back into 100% and check it out as you can see the form wizard not only successfully converted the form adding most of the form Fields as it did earlier but it also straightened out the form to the form wizard does an amazing job with most paper forms but it's not perfect depending on the quality of the original form and other factors we've already mentioned you may still have significant work ahead of you but the rewards in achieving an interactive fillable form are well worth the efforts no matter how good the form wizard is it won't work perfectly in every instance we've already seen how it misses data fields or applies them incorrectly frequently you'll have to add edit and delete Fields by hand acrobat provides eight different kinds of form fields that should serve every need in the upcoming lessons we'll explore most of the tools while we create a new fillable form by hand open the file text fields from the chapter 6 folder this form was designed and constructed in Adobe and design it's a complex design that uses most of the types of form Fields provided by acrobat to add new fields or edit existing ones click tools and open the forms panel click edit a dialog box appears asking you to start up the forms wizard we don't want to use the wizard to add Fields automatically so click no in this lesson you'll learn how to add text fields to the form the text field is hands down the most popular of all form Fields it's a rare form that doesn't use one the text field allows you to capture both text and numeric input ranging from a single character to thousands of words can you identify areas in the form where you would use a text field the contact block is one obvious candidate the user feedback area would be perfect for one too but we'll also use text Fields down here in the table section to create a kind of a spreadsheet to help users calculate their training costs to add a text field click add new field and choose the text field tool position your cursor over the contact block notice the Crosshair and Sample field icon if I click on the page at this moment acrobat would add a text field to the form the same size and shape of this icon it appears a little too big to me so I'm going to use the crosshairs to draw a custom siiz field make sure you make it big enough to hold the requested data when you're done release the mouse by default the program will give each field a unique name automatically the name of the field is irrelevant unless you intend in using the data outside of acrobat say in a spreadsheet or database or other data workflow for our purposes let's change the default name so that it matches the data label appearing in the form if the data was going to be exported to a database enter the name of the database field here type name and press return notice how the word now appears in the field itself if you need to move the field just click on it and reposition it you can also resize it by using these handles to edit the Field properties double click on it I like to start in the general tab notice how acrobat has added the word name to the name field automatically the tool tip is used to provide a visual reminder to the user whenever they position their Mouse over a specific field about what the field will do or to prompt the user for a specific action since the design doesn't provide a spot for both the first and last name it's a good idea to tell the user what type of information you want insert your cursor in the field and type enter your full name check to make sure your field is visible and click the appearance tab unlike other parts of the form the contact area doesn't feature any underlining geometry of lines or boxes in cases like this you should add borders to any Fields inserted here not only to make them easier to see but also to make them fit fit in better with the rest of the form select a color that matches other parts of the form in this case black or gray I'm going to choose black acrobat also allows you to pick the Border thickness for most applications you'll probably pick thin the Border style can be chosen here go ahead and select solid if it's not already chosen notice that the color chip indicates the field color is actually transparent the blue color you see in the field itself is added by acrobat to indicate that the form fields are fillable if you want to add an actual fill color click here I'm going to leave my fill transparent in this section you can specify the font size and color of the data choose a font that's easy on the eyes and a size that's large enough to be read easily but small enough to allow sufficient room for data for most forms I like to use helveta I or aerial at 10 points to help set the data off from the rest of the boilerplate text within the form you may want to choose a different text color this will help the user differentiate between the text that they're entering and the text as part of the form itself choose a dark color like green or blue click the options tab now the settings within this tab change depending on what type of form a field is selected for text Fields you can specify how the text is aligned left Center or right choose left you can also add a default value this can be handy in certain situations say most of your customers are in California you could enter the abbreviation CA as a default value in the State field but be careful if the user doesn't enter anything in this field the default value will be used even if If it's incorrect most of the times I like to leave this setting blank we'll explore some of the remaining options as we add other fields to the form click the actions tab just as we learned earlier with buttons acrobat allows you to add all sorts of dynamic functions to your form fields too in this menu you can access most of the commands with an acrobat as well as both internal and external Javascript programs click the format tab by default text Fields accept both numeric and text input but it's possible to limit or force a user to enter a specific type of data by assigning a format to the field the available formats include numbers percentages dates times and a special category for information like zip codes phone numbers and Social Security numbers you can even create your own data filter by selecting arbitrary mask under the custom category you can build your own data filter using JavaScript these options will come in handy when we create the date field in a few seconds but for this field we'll leave the format set To None which doesn't restrict the type of input the user can enter the validate tab provides two methods for validating data input the built-in method can restrict an entry between a range of numbers the custom validation method allows you to create your own validation routine using JavaScript we won't validate this particular field in the calculate tab you can calculate the sum or product of specific fields in the form or identify the average minimum or maximum values within a range I'll show you how to use this option later when we calculate the training costs for the time being go ahead and select value is not calculated for this field now that we've finished formatting the first field we can use these settings to redefine the default text field this will help to speed up the process of adding text Fields because we won't have to stop to format every aspect of each Field's design to set the current field as a new default right click on the name field and select use current properties as new defaults close the text Field properties and let's add the date field choose add new field and select the text field tool when you position the mouse next to the date field you can see how the new field is exactly the same size as the first field go ahead and click to insert the field if you check the rest of the properties you'll find that they are also identical name the field date and press return click all properties and select the format tab in the category menu choose date select the mass that requires two digits for the month month day and year you can see how the date will be formatted here click the general Tab and insert your cursor in the tool tip field type enter date as two digits for month day and year and press return next we'll add the email field you can also access the text field tool by right clicking on the page select text field line up the crosshairs on the name field and go ahead and click to insert the field go ahead and name it email and press return open the properties and type in the tool tip enter your email address sometimes you'll find it faster to insert new Fields by copying existing Fields but I prefer to use control drag on Windows or option drag on the Macintosh to create the duplicate hold the control key down select the email field and drag it over to the phone label if you hold the shift key it'll keep the field in the same horizontal alignment with the email field when it's in position go ahead and release the mouse now you can release the control and the shift key at the moment both fields are nearly identical in the text Field properties select the name field and enter the word phone press return insert your cursor in the tool tips field and type enter your phone number with area code and press return click the format tab select special and choose the phone number option close the text Field properties for a moment the text field for the user feedback area should allow the user to enter more than a single line of data this is normally referred to as a text area but we use the same tool to create it right click under the heading and select the text field tool use the Crosshair to align the text field and draw a new field to fill the entire area name the field feedback press return open the properties in the general tab insert your cursor in the tool tip field and type enter your suggestions here and press return select options and choose multi-line now the user can enter more than one line of data within the field let's close the text properties dialogue and save our file choose file save as PDF name the file my new form and click save to test your new Fields click preview click in the name field and type your name click in the date field and type the date notice that acrobat will display the date using two digits even if you enter a single digit for the day for the phone number field you can enter the phone number in several ways no matter how you enter it the results are the same the feedback field allows you to enter more than one line of data you can see when you enter more than one line of data the additional data will continue to wrap within the text field itself keep this form open and proceed to the next lesson in the previous lesson we explored how to add edit and configure text fields in an acrobat form in this lesson we'll explore how to work with checkboxes and radio buttons they're popular feature on most forms they're typically used when a question needs a yes or no answer or when the response you're looking for can be selected from a small predefined list of options people love multiple choice questions and since there's no typing involved typically you'll get more and better responses using checkboxes and radio buttons than fill in text Fields you can continue with the file you used in the last lesson if it's still open or you can open the file checkbox and radio button from the chapter 6 folder when you open the file you may see some data still displayed in the text fields for the moment that's perfectly fine checkboxes and radio buttons are similar in appearance and function but they differ in how the user interacts with them a checkbox can be turned on and off allowing the user to change their mind radio buttons once selected cannot be turned off that's why you often see a single checkbox on a form but radio buttons will always be inserted in sets of two or more on this form we'll use both types let's start with checkboxes this question ask the user to select the day or days of the week that they are available for class they may select one or more answers you could use a text field but that would require the user to enter the text themselves what would they type one person might type the words Monday Tuesday and so on others might enter the days as just letters like m t and W people could also enter other types of responses like everyday or no Wednesdays getting responses like this can be confusing and make it difficult to sort through and compile the data that's why the checkbox and radio button were invented by giving the user a predefined set of options you can get exactly the answer you're looking for to insert a checkbox click tools and open the forms panel click edit to enter form editing mode then select add new field and click the checkbox to tool zoom into the form as much as you can to get the best look at the area you'll be working in I'm going to go ahead and select 150% scroll down to the area where the question is and position your mouse over the first checkbox you'll notice that the checkbox icon is much larger than the geometry that's on the page you could click to insert a checkbox at this size or use the crosshairs to draw a checkbox the exact size of the icon let's name this one Monday press return to finish the name before we create the next field click all properties to check the formatting of this check boox make sure the name was entered correctly you can enter a tool tip to prompt the user to enter a specific value check to make sure your check box is visible and click appearance as you can see this check boox is formatted to have a black border with a white fill if we want to use the geometry that's currently on the page remove the Border color and the fill color by selecting no color in a text field I would never leave the font Siz as Auto but for a checkbox it's appropriate to ensure that the check mark fills the entire field the most important section of this dialogue box is the options tab it specifies what data is exported when the checkbox is selected the default data applied to checkboxes is typically the word yes for for example in the case of this checkbox you would see the data export as Monday equals yes for some workflows you may want to change the word to a numeric value so you could total up your answers in a spreadsheet or database we'll leave this value as it is you can also select the checkbox Style by default the checkbox typically has a check as an icon but you can also select circles crosses diamonds squares and stars since the checkboxes in this form are so small let's go ahead and select the square it'll be easier to see if you want the checkbox to be selected by default select this option just like with buttons and text Fields you can add Dynamic functionality to your checkboxes we're done for the moment so let's close the dialogue box to use the settings for the first checkbox for all the rest of the checkboxes right click on the field and select use current properties as new defaults let's go ahead and add the rest of the field Fields select the checkbox tool position it over the Tuesday icon and click the mouse notice how the second checkbox comes in at the same size and shape of the first checkbox let's go ahead and name this one Tuesday press return to finish the name you can also right click on the screen to access the checkbox tool go ahead and name it Wednesday go ahead and add Thursday and Friday too once you insert the checkboxes if you need to adjust their positions just click on the center of the checkbox and drag them to the spot where you want them if you just need to tweak their positions you can also use the arrow keys on your keyboard just select the check boox that you want to move and tap the arrow that points in the direction you want to move them for example up left down and right if you need to align your whole group of checkboxes then select each one by holding the shift key or you can select them all at once by drawing a marquee just make sure that no other field is accidentally selected you can align them by right clicking on the checkbox you want to designate as the master field and then selecting the appropriate command from the context menu you can align them as well as distribute them when the checkboxes are all properly positioned click the preview button to test them you can test them by clicking on them checkboxes can also be turned off if you need to adjust the position or formatting of a checkbox click the edit button to return to form editing mode and then just double click on a specific button to edit it when you're done with the checkboxes scroll down the page and let's add some radio buttons the next section of the questionnaire asks the users to specify their interest in specific training Topics by a ranking system of no interest somewhat interested and very interested you could insert individual checkboxes for each option but this could pose a potential problem because a user could select more than one option in each question a better choice would be to use a radio button radio buttons are ideal for providing multiple choices within a single question inserting radio buttons is similar to the process of adding checkboxes with a couple of important variations to insert a radio button select add new field and choose the radio button tool position your mouse over the first icon you'll notice that the sample icon is much larger lger than the existing geometry on the page just like with checkboxes we could insert the button at this size but I prefer to use the crosshairs to draw a radio button to be the same size as the one that's on the page when you click to add the button you will see the first difference between radio buttons and checkboxes do you see how the name box for the radio button has two Fields instead of one one field is for the name of the radio button group the other is for the data value of the individual button a group of radio buttons May provide two or more answers since acrobat only allows you to select one value in any group when you select one value the other values are automatically deselected give each group a name pertinent to the specific question you could use the number of the question in this case number one or pull a word or phrase from the question itself for this button let's use the word websites for the button value we could use the word no interest but in this case a better option would be the numeric value of zero we'll give the other buttons numeric values too that way when the radio button is selected the response will be exported as websites equals zero before you create the second button in the group click properties to check its formatting I like to start in the general tab check to make sure that the group name is correct unlike checkboxes the tool tip for radio buttons is applied to the entire group make sure the radio button is visible and click appearance just like the check boxes the radio button has a border color and a fill color if you want to use the existing geometry on the page set these To None click the options tab as you can see the options tab for a radio button is identical to the one for checkboxes the only difference is is that radio buttons default to a circle icon as opposed to a check mark let's go ahead and keep the default setting if you want the radio buttons turned on by default go ahead and select which button in the group you want to set as the default you can also add Dynamic functions to radio buttons as well when you're done close the dialogue box before you add your second button right click on the first one and select use current properties as new defaults now let's add the new button choose the radio button tool and position it over the second icon notice how the second icon is now the same size and shape as the first notice how acrobat automatically reuses the group name for the radio button Choice let's use a numeric value of one acrobat knows you'll be adding more than one radio button at a time so the program provides a way to speed up the process click this option to add another button in the current group change the value to two when you're done with the last button in this group you may think you'll need to go back to the menu and get the radio button tool again but there's really no need this option can be used to start the new group too just remember to change the group name when you add the button let's use the group group name of web pages let's continue to use the value of zero for the first button go ahead and continue to add buttons for each question in a section continue to add buttons for each question in this section pulling the group name from some word or phrase specific to each add values to each to match the response you want returned as with checkboxes if you need to adjust the position or formatting of any of the buttons just select the individual button and move it double click on the button to access the properties when you're finished you may need to line up the buttons to make them look neat and professional as with the check boxes you can select the buttons one at a time holding the shift key or all at once using a marquee since we'll have several rows of buttons it may be necessary to align the buttons vertically too you can also select the buttons from other groups using the mark key tool just right click on the master field and choose a line left or right when you finish adding your radio buttons click preview to test them click on them to see if they work when you click on different values in the same group The previously selected radio button should be deselected automatically notice how you cannot deselect a radio button when you're done select save as PDF and name the form my new form click yes to save over any previous version of the file if necessary checkboxes and radio buttons are easy to add to your forms and easy to fill out using them will make it more likely the user will actually complete the form and send it in leave this file open and proceed to the next lesson in the last lesson you learned how to work with checkboxes and radio buttons in this lesson we'll look at how to use list boxes typically list boxes are used when the list of options is relatively short and you want the user to see all the options at once a list box also allows the user to select more than one option you can use the form that you created in the last lesson if it's still open or open the file list and drop down from the chapter 6 folder in this form we want want the user to tell us what department they work for we could use a text field and allow the user to type in their department but we may not get back the answer in the correct format people may abbreviate the name or enter it incorrectly entering data incorrectly can render it useless in a database we could use a set of radio buttons but if there are many departments in the company it could take up a lot of space in the form instead we'll use a list box to provide the names of the Departments for the users to choose from to insert a list box click two tools open the forms panel and click edit to edit form editing mode click add new field and select list box before you insert the list box you should zoom in to get a better look at the form scroll over to the area where the department is and position the mouse next to the department label notice the crosshairs in the sample list box icon if you clicked right now acrobat would insert a list box the size and shape of this icon as you can see the icon is too big to fit into the space use the Crosshair to align to the previous field on the left and draw a list box to fit into the space available let's name the field Department press return to complete the name to format the list box click all properties I like to start in the general tab check to make sure that the name is correct you can also add a tool tip here to prompt the user for the desired action make sure the form field is visible and click appearance as in the case with the text fields we added earlier there is no existing geometry for the list box so you should add a border color to the Box The Fill color has already been set to be white but that shouldn't matter in the area that it's being inserted in make sure your line thickness is set for thin to match the existing text fields and that the line style is solid in the previous text fields we used 10-point helvetica with a text color of dark green click on the options tab as with the check boxes and radio buttons this section of the dialogue box is the most important for list box here's where you enter the data values that will be exported from the list insert your cursor in the item field if necessary and enter the name of the department as you want to display to the user let's type Human Resources you could use the display name as the export value but in most most cases you'll probably want to enter information that's more specific to your workflow in this case we use the abbreviation HR for human resources when you finish both Fields go ahead and click the add button let's add some more Department names design and marketing is abbreviated usually as DNM click add to add it to the list as you can see the entries are appearing in the list box on the screen enter engineering the abbreviation is eg and finally sales with the abbreviation of Sal as you complete the list you notice the department names are listed in the order that you entered them if you want you can select a department name and manually move it up and down through the list you can also select this option to sort the list automatically in some cases you may want the user to be able to select multiple options within this list box if that's the case go ahead and choose multiple selection you notice that if you select an option in the dialogue box that option is automatically selected within the list typically in a list box I'll select the option within the list that's the most popular or the one that I think will be returned most frequently if no such option exists in this list then typically I like to select the first item in the list if you want to make sure that the item that's selected is automatically exported choose commit selected value immediately when you're done with your list click the actions tab as you can with any acrobat field you can add Dynamic functions to your list boxes the list box also offers an additional option of being able to run a script whenever the selection in the Box changes when you're done formatting your list box go ahead and close the dialogue box and let's preview it to test it as you can see the design matches the text fields to select an option simply click it when you're finished testing the list box select file save as PDF and save the file as my new form click yes to save over any previous version of the form in this lesson we learned how to insert edit and configure a list box to provide a set of predefined answers for a question on our form for this example you could easily substitute a drop- down menu in place of the list box in many cases they're interchangeable the procedure for inserting a drop-down menu is nearly identical for those we use to create the list box the drop-down menu differs from the list box in that it displays all the options in a pull down menu this feature makes it the most efficient method for providing a large amount amount of data in a small space we'll use a drop- down menu in the next lesson where you'll learn how to calculate totals from multiple Fields if you've ever filled out a paper based form you've probably experienced the sheer Joy of having to add up your purchases manually so you can fill in the total field before writing your check have you ever added the numbers incorrectly have you ever sent in an incorrect payment I know I have now multiply your error by millions and you can see the problems companies face all over the world but if the order form was a PDF file there's no reason a user should ever experience this problem acrobat allows you not only to create an interactive order form where you can enter the products and their costs it also allows you to create calculation fields to total up these costs automatically you can open the file calculate. PDF from the chapter 6 folder before we can create the training cost calculator we'll need to populate the rest of the table with form Fields we've already added a drop-down menu let's go ahead and finish the first row to enter these fields click tools and open the forms panel click edit to enter the forms editing mode and select add new field text field let's zoom in to get a better look at the workspace I'm going to select 100% scroll down to the bottom of the page to get a good look at the table position your cursor over the class cost cell and draw a text field within the cell when I add text fields to a table I like to keep the numbers away from the edges of the cells so make sure you give yourselves plenty of space on either side let's name this cost press return to finish the name and click all properties to edit the field I like to start in the general tab check to see if the name is correct and let's enter a tool tip to prompt the user for an action type enter the cost of the class make sure the form field is visible and click the appearance tab earlier we had to turn on the border color because the text fields in the contact block didn't have any underlying geometry down here in the table we already have borders so let's go Ahad and shut off the Border color click no color make sure the text is formatted to be 10p point helvetica and remember to choose the dark green color we've been using for all the text fields in options I like to align currency to the right select format and choose number since the classes are listed in whole dollars we won't need any decimal places let's go ahead and set them to zero if necessary go ahead and choose the dollar sign as the currency symbol once you're done formatting this text field let's go ahead and make make this the default for the rest of the text Fields right click on the text field and select use current properties as the new defaults to add the next text field you can go ahead and right click on the screen and select text field from the context menu notice how the new text field is exactly the same size as the previous one go ahead and Center it in the cell and click let's name this one attending press return the finish the name since this cell indicates how many participants will be in the class let's click all properties and make some small changes under the general tab insert your cursor in the tool tip and enter enter the number of participants you shouldn't need to make any changes in the appearance tab but let's click on options and center the number under format choose number and since the number of participants will always be a whole number let's go ahead and set the decimal places to zero and turn off the dollar sign finally let's add the totals field right click on the screen again choose text field and add your totals field let's name it total press return click all properties to edit the field in the general tab since this field will calculate the total the user won't need to enter anything into the cell so we don't need a tool tip click read only this will prevent the user from accidentally clicking in the cell and entering data you shouldn't need to make any changes in their appearance or options click format and format the text field as a number as with the cost we won't need decimal places so go ahead and select zero and choose the dollar sign as the currency symbol when we're finished this field will be a calculation field but for the moment we won't be able to add the calculation because we use the fields to help us populate the rest of the table close the dialogue box before we use the fields in the first road to populate the rest of the table let's make sure that they're aligned and distributed properly you can select all the fields by holding the shift key down and clicking on them individually or you can use a mark key to select them all at once once you've selected them choose one as a master field and right click on it select aign and distribute in this case I'll line them to the Top If you need to reposition the fields on your screen you can use your arrow keys to move them up or down left or right once you have your fields properly aligned and positioned we can use them now to populate the rest of the table there are several ways to create additional rows you could build them all by hand like we did the first row or you could copy and paste duplicates in each row but the best way to create multiple rows is to use a feature in acrobat designed specifically for this purpose you can right click on the cells and select Place multiple Fields this dialogue allows you to populate your page with Fields automatically by choosing the number of rows and columns you'd like to duplicate in this case we don't need to create the fields across the page but just down count the number of rows we need 1 2 3 4 and enter the number into this window when you press tab acrobat will display the four rows check the display to make sure that the rows are lined up you can change the height of the distribution by adjusting this number here you can also move them up or down left and right go and position the duplicates on the screen appropriately and when you're ready click okay as you can see acrobat not only created duplicate Fields but it also named them incrementally notice how it added a digit at the end of each name starting at 0o through three now that we have the table fully populated we can start creating our calcul calculations double click on the first Total field select the calculate Tab and choose value is and select product the total cost will be the product of the class cost multiplied times the number of participants within the class click pick and then select the field attending zero and cost zero to match the two Fields within the first row when you're done click okay now repeat the same process with each of the total Fields choose value is the product and this time we're going to select cost one and attending one click okay this time choose attending two and cost two and finally choose total three once you have all the totals finished let's go ahead and test them click the preview button enter the price of one of the classes in the class cost field and enter a number attending when you press tab the total should automatically appear you should test each of the rows of the table to make sure that all the total fields are properly formatted once you've tested all the rows you can add another field to add up the total cost of all the classes click the edit button to return to form editing mode right click and select text field go ahead and add the new text field in the total cost for training cell and let's name it total training cost click all properties and like the other total Fields let's make it a readon field we shouldn't need to change anything in the appearance or the options under format select number set the decimal places to zero and make sure the dollar sign is selected in the currency symbol in the calculator field this calculation will be the sum of all the total Fields click pick and select total zero 1 2 and three click okay close the dialogue box and click preview to test your new Total field it looks like everything's working just fine finally we have one more field to add to our form this field will display the cost in a larger size to make the total cost more visible to create it we could add a new field from scratch or simply take the total training cost field and duplicate it you could copy and paste it but I prefer to control drag it in Windows on the Macintosh hold down the option key place a duplicate field and go ahead and resize it to fit the entire window let's reformat it to make the price a little bit more prominent double click on it to open the text Field properties click on the appearance Tab and let's choose a larger font let's say 14 points and let's choose helvetica bold click on the general tab Whenever two text Fields have the same name they'll display the same data automatically I use this trick all the time forms when a user needs to enter their name more than once in a form by using the same name field in multiple places of the form you save the user the effort of having to type their name several times click the preview button to check to see how your form looks now and everything looks great once the calculator is complete you'll have to do something with the data it doesn't do you any good to leave it in the form and it won't go anywhere by itself in the next lesson we'll explore the steps you need to take to create a submit button to send the data off by email go ahead and save the file as my new form.pdf in the chapter 6 folder go ahead and save it over any version from a previous lesson you can leave this file open and proceed to the next lesson once your form is complete and filled in you'll want to do something with the data you could print out the form with the data on it but that doesn't make the electronic form any better than the the paper based one web-based HTML forms can redirect the data to another person by email or insert it directly into a database this is also possible with a PDF form when you send the data electronically it's called submitting and in most applications a user has to click a submit button to send off the data you could set up the form to submit itself when the last field is filled in but in most cases you'll want the user to make that decision themselves it gives them a chance to review the form and entries to catch any mistakes in this lesson you'll learn how to add a submit button to your form that will send the user's data to you by email you can use the form you created in the previous lesson if you still have it open or open the file submit button. PDF from the chapter 6 folder when you open the file you may notice that some data was saved in the form Fields you can save data in a form in any full version of acrobat in an UPC coming lesson I'll show you how you can set up a form so that users of Acrobat Reader can save data too this is an important feature if you need to send out forms to users and you don't know whether or not they have a full version of acrobat to edit the form click tools and open the forms panel click edit to enter forms editing mode in the forms task panel one of the available field types is a button you can add submit functionality to any of the form Fields but users are accustomed to clicking buttons for this purpose this tool is identical to the one that appears in the content panel which we used in a previous lesson in this lesson you'll learn how to add a submit button to your form that will send the user's data to you by email to add a submit button click the button tool and position it over the lower right corner of the page typically you put a submit button near the bottom of the page after the form is completely filled out so that it's more convenient to the user notice that crosshairs in the icon if I click right now acrobat will insert a button the same size and shape shape of this icon let's go ahead and use the crosshairs to draw a larger button that way it'll be easier for the user to see it and use it you can name the button anything you like but I'm going to go ahead and name mine submit press return to finish the name if you need to reposition your button just click in it and reposition it on the page I'm going to go ahead and Center mine right underneath this totals field to edit the button properties double click on it I like to start in the general tab check to make sure your name is correct let's insert a tool tip to prompt the user for an action enter the text click to email your responses make sure the button is visible and click on the appearance tab earlier we learned that we could add graphical icons to our buttons as well as the format it's border and fill color I like to use a green color for submit buttons so I'm going to choose a dark green for the border and a slightly lighter green for the button itself go ahead and choose a thin border and let's choose bevel to give it a threedimensional quality I want the user to see the button clearly so I'm going to leave the font size at 12 and at helvetica bold but let's choose white for the text color to get the most contrast click options in this case we'll only add text to our button so choose label only if necessary and insert your cursor in the label field let's insert an unmistakable message click to email click return or enter to complete the label you should be able to see the text appearing in the button itself click the actions tab in the action menu select submit a form for most submit buttons I like to use the mouse up trigger this executes the command once the user clicks on the button and then releases the mouse it gives the user a chance to change their mind go and click add in this dialog box we're going to enter how the data will be returned to us if we want it sent by email enter this command mail to colon and then enter your email address I'm going to send it to the HR department at Vinita toly wines next you need to choose the export format FDF is a text format that's similar to the PDF file format but only includes the data itself along with the data you can also send any comments and incremental changes to the PDF file if you're using a web based application you can return the data in an HTML format choose xfdf if you want the data returned in an XML based format finally you can choose to return the entire PDF file depending on how you created your PDF file this could be a very large file format the next option allows you to select What fields you want returned you can choose all the fields or you can select individual fields from the form let's go ahead and select all the fields if your form includes a date field choose this option to convert any entered information into a standard format when you're ready go ahead and click the okay button now close the button properties dialogue and let's test the button click the preview button if you need to fill out some or all of the form fields and when you're ready click the submit button this dialog box appears asking you whether you want to send the data by a desktop email application like Outlook yodora mail or an internet application like Yahoo or Hotmail if you select a desktop email application acrobat will launch your default email application and automatically attach the form data to the email message the return address for the email will be the one you entered in the submit button field earlier for this example let's choose internet email when you click okay a dialogue box appears prompting you to save the form data to your hard drive for this lesson save it to the chapter 6 folder and let's name it my data acrobat will add the FDF extension to it automatically click save the next step would be to locate the file on your hard drive attach it to an email message and send it off as you can see this method requires a lot of work by your form recipient I can guarantee that the more work a user has to do to send back the form data the fewer responses you can expect if you want to maximize your Returns the best options are either to use a custombuilt internet-based application where the form data is captured by an online database or to use acrobat.com or other webdb server later in this chapter I'll show you how to use acrobat.com to host your forms and collect your responses automatically return to acrobat and save your file as my new form.pdf in the chapter 6 folder go ahead and save it over any previous version of the file you can leave this file open and proceed to the next lesson before we begin open the file reset button. PDF from the chapter 6 folder or you can use the form from the previous lesson if you still have it open well your form is nearly complete it's populated by a variety of fields as well as a submit button that will send off your data by by email but there's one glaring problem even after the data is sent off by email it can still remain visible in the form Fields when you close the file the data may be saved in the form even if you don't want it to be that means the next time you or someone else opens it your data may still be visible obviously this poses a security threat if the form asks for sensitive information like phone credit card or social security numbers the user can delete the data manually but this would both be inefficient and aggravating to prevent this type of information from getting into the wrong hands you should always add some method for clearing the form automatically web-based HTML forms are cleared automatically when you submit them you could add this function to your own submit button but then your users wouldn't have the option of saving the data if they wanted to instead I like to add a reset button along with a submit button to each form a reset button can be used to clear the data from the form after it's been submitted or simply clear the form if the user changes their mind and doesn't want to submit the data at all to create a reset button click tools and open the forms panel click edit to enter forms editing mode you could select the button tool from the task pane but since we already have a submit button I like to Simply duplicate this button and change its action to duplicate it you could simply right click on it copy and paste the duplicate but I prefer to use control drag in Windows to create a duplicate on the Macintosh hold down the option key if you hold the shift key while you're dragging it it'll keep the two buttons aligned to edit the new button double click on it let's go to the general tab the first thing you should do is change its name you could name it anything you want but I'm going to call it reset let's update the tool tip to say click to clear the form when you're ready click on the appearance tab let's change the color you can choose any color you like I prefer to use this orange or amber color if you think the text is too hard to read you may want to change the color perhaps black would be better click on options let's update the label too enter the text clear form and press return you can see the change in the button on the screen click actions select submit form and delete it choose reset form from the action menu choose the mouse up trigger and click add a dialog box appears asking you to specify which field you want to reset in our form we'll want all the fields Fields reset but in some cases if you're using labels or other fields that have default information in them you may want to deselect those from the list when you're ready click okay the reset button is complete to test it let's close the dialogue box and click preview if you don't have any data in your form go ahead and enter some now when you're ready click the clear form button when you click the button the fields in the form will be cleared or returned to the default settings resetting the form is a one-way Street there's no way to undo it or restore the data once it's cleared unless of course you've saved the file with the data earlier by default only users with a full version of acrobat can save forms containing data but if you want to you can enable users of Acrobat Reader to save their data too this is important if you're planning on Distributing your form to people who don't have a full version of Acrobat save the form as my new form.pdf in the chapter 6 folder go ahead and save over any previous versions of the file by default users of Adobe Reader are limited to what they can do for example they can't modify the text or structure of a PDF file or even save the data entered in a PDF form but if you have a full version of acrobat you can enable your PDF files to allow users of reader to perform several Tas that normally can only be done in acrobat itself if you have it installed launch Adobe Reader you can usually find it on the start menu in Windows or in the application folder on a Macintosh near the rest of the other Adobe apps if you don't have the free Adobe Reader installed you can download it and install it now from the Adobe website when reader's up and running go ahead and open the file standard form.pdf from the chapter 6 folder this version of the form should be identical to the one you've been creating in this chapter and may even have it open at this moment as you can see users of Adobe Reader are allowed to open the form and fill out the fields they can even click on the submit and reset buttons if you read the notice at the top of the document you'll learn that reader can't save the data typed into the form if you try by selecting the save as command reader will warn you several more times that it can only save a blank version of the file click cancel and return to the document window close the document and return to Acrobat if your form is not already open open it now or open standard form.pdf from the chapter 6 folder select file save as reader extended PDF here acrobat gives you the options of enabling reader users to add text to PDF files even outside of form Fields as well as enabling commenting and measuring to to allow reader users to save form data select enable additional features the additional features include saving the form data commenting and drawing markup as well as signing documents both in signature fields or anywhere else in the document but enabling these features for reader users comes with a price you'll lose the ability to modify certain aspects of an enabled file even an acrobat itself so it's a good idea to change the name of the enabled file so so you can go back to edit the original if necessary click save now name the file my enabled form.pdf and save it in the chapter 6 folder when acrobat is done saving it close the file and switch back to Adobe Reader open the file my enabled form.pdf the first thing you should notice that the note at the top of the screen now says that you can save the data in the form if you fill in some of the fields and then select the file menu you'll see that the menu now includes a save option as well as a save as command this file can can now be filled in and saved by users of acrobat or reader and is now ready to distribute to your employees or customers close the file and exit reader don't save any changes open the file my enabled form from the chapter 6 folder you can click on the link in the recent file list if you want the form is complete and ready to be distributed you've even enabled it for Adobe read users but there's something you need to see first if you look in the pages panel under Tools you'll see that some of the features for editing PDF files have been disabled you won't even be able to edit the form itself that's why we saved it under a different name if you need to make any changes you can open the original non- enabled file click okay to return to the document well you're only one step away from sending out this form to collect survey responses in the next lesson I'll show you how to send out the form by email in this lesson we'll take a look at the methods you can use to distribute your fillable PDF forms you can open the file training survey.pdf from the chapter 6 folder this is a finished version of the fillable form that has not been enabled for Adobe Reader before you can distribute this form you'll need to customize the action applied to the submit button so that the form responses will be returned to you if you're using your own form you don't need to do the following steps and if your form is enabled for Adobe Reader you won't be able to to customize the submit button action click tools and open the forms panel click edit to enter forms editing mode and then double click on the submit button to bring up the properties dialogue box if necessary click on the actions tab select the submit a form action and click edit in the URL field add your own email address after the mail to command click okay to apply the changes and then close the properties dialogue box when you're ready to distribute your PDF form click the distribute option in the task panel go ahead and save the file as my training survey.pdf in the chapter 6 folder acrobat can automate the entire process of sending out the form tracking the responses and collecting the data most of these features are enabled through acrobat.com but we'll explore this service in the next lesson for now we'll take a look at how you can send out the form and collect responses using just your own email service in this dialogue box you'll select the method you want to use to distribute your form pull down the menu to choose to use either acrobat.com your own email service or a location on your own network server my first choice is always acrobat.com it automates most of the process and can automatically track who you sent the form to and whether or not they've responded if your company policies prohibit the use of such Services my next choice would be to use my own network server it's especially handy if your form is over the size limit for email attachment ments this will rarely be the case however unless you've embedded large image files within the form if you want to send your form to people who don't have access to your network server then you'll have to select manually collect responses in an email inbox click next acrobat offers to send out your form using your default email application when you send it this way acrobat will track the email address you just send it to but it won't be able to collect the return forms automatically as it would with acrobat.com if you choose to save it locally you'll have to access your own email application create the message attach the form and then send it out all without any help if you use Microsoft Outlook or another desktop email application choose the first option if you use Hotmail Gmail or some other internet based email application choose the second option I'm going to choose the first click next in this dialogue box I need to add the email addresses for my form recipients if you're seeing a different dialogue box requesting you to enter your name email address and other info just do that first then proceed to this dialogue box depending on what email app you use you may be able to access your address book by clicking on the two button I've created four generic names to help me test the form distribution I'll add them all to the two field when you're ready click okay to return to the send dialogue note the default subject and body message if you want you can customize it with your own when you're ready click Send to distribute the form after you click the button several things happen in quick succession acrobat creates two new versions of your file one to distribute and one to collect the responses the distributed file is passed along to your email application and then the form tracker interface opens in this interface you can monitor the progress of your survey we can view the responses check where the responses file is saved on our hard drive see what date we sent it out open the original form and then check to see how many responses we've received if you use a desktop email application the tracker also includes a list of recipients that you sent that form to and tracks whether they've responded or not if the recipient hasn't responded you can also send out a reminder email by clicking this option the email itself won't be sent out until the next time you open your email application so let's launch Outlook to send out our form depending on how fast your email app is you'll see that the survey has already been sent out I've also set up Outlook to receive the email for one of my generic form recipients later we'll show you how a user would open the file and send back their responses although this method doesn't offer all the Automation and capabilities of acrobat.com all in all it sure beats sending out the forms by hand acrobat.com offers a suite of online services that include online file storage web conferencing online collaboration as well as a place to host your acrobat forms you can set up a free account to try all the services all you need to set it up is a valid email address and access to the internet using acrobat.com to host your form online has several advantages over other methods first you don't have to worry about the file size limits or firewall filters of certain mail services the PDF file doesn't go out by email only the notice does acrobat.com takes care of notifying your recipients and tracking the responses automatically the PDF form can be hosted where it can be accessed by anyone on the Internet or you can secure it so only users with the proper credentials can access it and finally the user doesn't even have to have a full version of acrobat on their computer to use the service they can simply download and use the free Adobe Reader if you have an acrobat.com account you should first configure a few acrobat preference settings before you try to upload a form in Windows select edit preferences on the Macintosh choose acrobat preferences select the identity category check your name and your default email address make any changes you need to acrobat uses this name when it sends out the notices to the recipients then click online services enter your username for your acrobat.com account here acrobat will prompt you for the password later whenever I send out a form on acrobat.com I like to have a copy of the invitation sent to me if you want an invitation sent to you make sure this option is selected click okay to apply your changes for this lesson you can use the form you completed earlier in this chapter or open the file online survey.pdf from the chapter 6 folder this form is identical to the one we sent out by email in the previous lesson except that it hasn't been enabled for usage rights for Adobe Reader but if you're going to use acrobat.com you don't have to when you upload the file it's automatically enabled to host this form on acrobat.com click tools and open the forms panel click distribute choose automatically download an organize responses with acrobat.com and click next acrobat may prompt you for your username and password go ahead and enter them click sign in in this dialogue enter the email addresses of the recipients in some cases you may be able to access your address book by clicking the two button for this lesson I've created four test Emil email addresses and configured Outlook to collect the email sent to the account for student one select the addresses you want the form invitation sent to click to and then okay to add them to the mailing list to see how the process works you should add your own email address as one of the recipients feel free to add your own subject and message to the appropriate fields in this dialogue box later you can reset the default message by clicking this option at at the bottom of the email message make sure you select whether you want to limit access only to specific recipients or to have the form open to the public let's choose Open Access if your form is open to the public you should collect the name and email addresses from the recipient so you know who's filling out the form then click Send when you click Send several things happen at once acrobat creates two copies of your PDF file one to distribute and one to collect all the responses it enables the online form and then then uploads it to the server and then sends out a notice to each recipient with a hyperlink to the PDF file online the tracker interface will then open in this interface you can keep an eye on the progress of your form most importantly at the bottom of the window you can see the list of recipients and how many have responded so far if you want to see how acrobat.com actually works launch your email application and check your inbox for your invitation if necessary you may need to click the send and receive button select the email invitation that you received then click the link to access the form if you're connected to the internet in a few moments acrobat.com will open in a browser window it should give you the option to download or open the form if you download it you can fill it out later when you're offline let's click open when the PDF file opens in the browser window fill out the form with some sample data what you fill out is an important it's just to get an idea of how the form works when you're done you can click the submit button at the bottom of the form or this one here at the top of the document window they'll both do the same thing you may remember that you added your email address to the submit button action in the original form but there's no need to worry when you host a form online this option is overridden and the data is sent back to acrobat.com instead go ahead and click the submit button fill in your return address and your name and then click Send close the form after you send the data and exit the browser let's return back to acrobat while you can always send out your forms by email and host them on the Internet and on your local network nothing beats acrobat.com for sheer power and convenience so far in this chapter we've completed a fillable PDF form and sent it out using both a built-in email application as well as acrobat.com once the form has been out for a while like any good fisherman it's it's time to check our hooks to see what we've caught to see if there's any responses to our forms click tools and open the forms panel and click track the tracker interface will open the tracker not only monitors forms hosted online by acrobat.com it can also keep track of forms sent out by email and by other means it'll show you a list of the forms that you've sent out and if you click on the name of the form it'll show you all of its statistics too like where the response file is saved whether the form is active what date you distributed it on the access level you gave it as well as a list of all the recipients that you sent it to you can also email the recipients from this window as well as add new ones and if you haven't received the response from a specific individual you can click this option to email the recipients who haven't responded yet automatically if you want to stop collecting responses click this option this option will open the original form to see all the results collected by the form so far click view responses let's review the responses from the online survey when you click the button acrobat will open the response file and compile all the data if the form was hosted on acrobat.com like this one was the responses will be downloaded automatically as you see let's get started if you sent out the form by email or if the file was hosted on the internet or your local network you'll probably have to import the results manually some of these results may be saved to your hard drive or the network or come in attached to emails to import the results files click view responses get started and click the add button click add files and navigate to the chapter six folder I've included some sample responses in the responses folder select the files and click Open click okay to import the data here you see acrobat has imported the data from the files located on my hard drive but we can also compile the results from files attached to emails launch your email application and open up your inbox locate the email you received and double click to open the attachment I like to open the attachment if it belongs to a survey because most or all of the results files will have the same name if you try to save this attachment to your hard drive first you'll have to rename them all manually so you don't save one data file over another the PDF file knows that it belongs to a survey and it will prompt you to add the data to the existing response file go a and click okay to import the data as you can see the data from the email attachment has been added to our file whether you sent out your form forms by email host them on the network or use acrobat.com you'll probably receive responses in many ways users with older versions of acrobat may have to download the form and return it by email when you're done downloading and importing the responses you can view the answers in acrobat or you can export the data to other formats in the next lesson I'll show you how to export the compiled data to a CSV or XML file although acrobat makes it easy to collect data using Dynamic forms the real power in the process is its capability for exporting the data to other formats so that you can use it in your favorite database or spreadsheet open the file export responses from the chapter 6 folder click the get started button this file contains the collected responses from several users to export the data to another format select export and choose export all now name the file my data and select CSV or comma delimited from the pull down menu click save when it's done exporting the file launch Microsoft Excel if you have it and open the file you may need to choose the option all files to see the file this type of file can also be imported into most database programs whether you use a spreadsheet or a database now you can create formulas and totals and analyze the data to your heart's consent one important aspect of form design is is creating an efficient flow through the fields via the tab order in other words the ability to navigate through your form using the Tab Key rather than the mouse did you know that you can jump from one field to another automatically using the Tab Key unfortunately sometimes acrobat conspires against you in this area when you use the form wizard to create a form it drops Fields sometimes in what seems like a random order that can make the effort of using the Tab Key a nightmare experience normally the tab order is assigned to the fields as they're inserted in the form if you build the form in a logical manner the tab order will likewise be logical too but not always acrobat likes to assign tab order based on position it starts at the top left and then moves from left to right from top to bottom if you have a single colum form most of your Fields will probably end up in a logical order but if you design a multicolumn form like the one we're building in this chapter all bets are off open the file tab order .pdf from the chapter 6 folder this file is identical to the one you created earlier even down to its convoluted tab order to get a firsthand look at tab order click the text selection or the hand tool insert your cursor in the name field and press the Tab Key did you notice how the cursor moves to the date field keep pressing Tab and observe how the cursor travels then to email then to phone then to Department then to Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday all the way through the form until you get to the third row of the radio buttons and then it jumps from the radio buttons into the user feedback field if you keep pressing the Tab Key eventually you'll get to the cost calculator and as you go through the first row everything seems to be fine but then it gets really bad after that as you can see the cursor is going down through the column instead of going across by row to edit the form field tab order click tools and open the forms panel click edit to enter forms editing mode notice a list of the fields and their current order before you try to edit the positions of any of the fields make sure they're sorted by tab order and not alphabetically if you look carefully you'll see that the feedback text area appears between two rows of the radio buttons instead it should appear below the radio buttons to change the tab order of this field just drag the field to its desired position you could fix the tab Ard of the training cost calculator the same way by dragging each field to its proper position but acrobat provides the means to reorder the fields automatically click the option order tabs by Row from the pull down menu now if you look at the fields in the cost calculator you'll see that they in the proper order but while it fixed one problem it actually caused another go back up and look at the feedback form and you can see that it's back in its old position go ahead and fix it manually again when the feedback form is in the proper location you can also fix the total training cost number one field you can drag it down just above the reset button and then reposition the submit button as well when you're done be aware that even after you move the fields acrobat May reshuffle them again later when you edit the existing fields or add new fields to the form when you're done save the file as my complete form in the chapter 6 folder in this chapter we've created a dynamic fillable form in acrobat and learned how to distribute it to a mailing list and then collect responses both by email and by acrobat.com no other method allows you to collect data from such a variety of sources both online and off acrobat forms Rock

Channel: Navjot Singh

Views: 337,402

Keywords: Creating, PDF, Forms

Id: __SRXe4r9Ng

Length: 102min 19sec (6139 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 30 2012