Dave Cross developed an interactive PDF for people planning to attend Photoshop World in Las Vegas this September. In this tutorial, he breaks down how he used Acrobat Pro tools, like combo box, to create the form.
Author: Dave Cross
For close to 25 years, Dave Cross has been helping photographers and creative professionals get the most out of their software. Starting with Adobe Illustrator classes in 1987, Dave has taught Photoshop,Illustrator and InDesign to thousands of users around the world. He has a Bachelor of Education, is an Adobe Certified Instructor in Photoshop CS5 and is a Certified Technical Trainer. Dave has taught at Photoshop World (20 times), written numerous articles and several books, co-hosts Photoshop User TV and has appeared in many DVDs and online courses for Kelby Training. Dave is the Lead Instructor for the National Association of Photoshop Professionals, and runs his own studio/workshop space in Tampa, FL. Over the last 12 years, Dave has taught Photoshop in every state in the United States, throughout Canada and in Europe, consistently earning rave reviews. Dave is well-known for his engaging style, his humor and his ability to make complex topics easy to understand. In 2009 Dave was inducted into the Photoshop Hall of Fame.
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The way I understand it though the filled out form can only be printed off, the final filled out pdf can’t be saved and emailed back by the end user can it?
Thanks!
not so after you have finished design save as pdf – click advanced on the menu and enable usage rights in acrobat reader
I’m using radio buttons in a form and turned the fields highlight color to white. It is my understanding that I’m not able to control this highlight color when another person views my form. Since the default is a blue box behind the round radio button it looks very odd. Do you know a work around or do I have to tell everyone to go into preferences and turn their highlight color to white? Thanks.
How do we get the selected data to be sucked out from the form?
This a great tutorial for Acrobat form beginners. However, there’s a few huge tips missing that may make for huge headaches once the form is complete.
First, when mass duplicating forms all ready created, be especially mindful of changing the name of that form. Otherwise you’re going to be hunting down why the form produces duplicate entries.
Second, how does one make the newly created interactive PDF form usable for just anyone without paying for all the silly Acrobat server licenses? It’s simple, under the “Advanced” menu item, click “Extend Features in Acrobat Reader”. This will allow anyone with Acrobat Reader to fill it out, save it, print it, send it via email.
Third, how can you retrieve just the data so you don’t have to be sent the actual form? There’s a number of ways depending on your situation, but my favorite two choices are “Track Forms” under the “Forms” menu item, and a plain old email button on the form. The Track Forms is more in depth and will actually track all the data sent in. You’ll need to set up an email button/send form button so that the data can be sent. With Track Forms is mostly automated, with just a plain email/send form button, you can get the FDF data or XML data too I believe.
Hope that helps iron out some of the issues with interactive forms created in Acrobat Pro
Solved my problems with interactive forms that can be read in Acrobat Reader 9. Funny how Adobe doesn’t have this information on their website.
Im having a similar problem.
I have created a form using Abobe and Live Cycle. I have created all the form fields. I have Enabled the PDF for Acrobat Users. However when they complete the form, they can type into it and save it, but when they go to print it, all the fields are blank. Is there a reason for this, and how do i solve it?
Many thanks
Hi there, I have created a form on my current pdf and selected fields that I want to have as required, I have made a submit button and selected mouse down, edit field, mailto:my email addresss and then clicked the pdf whole document. but when trialing the pdf out on a pc when it comes to attach to the email it become a fdf which i cannot open on my mac? help please !!!
beg your pardon “edit field” should have read submit a form
Excellent! Very valuable lesson. I appreciate your positng this.
Hi Dave,
Thanks for the tutorial video, really helpful. I was wondering if you can help me though.
I’ve created this interactive form witha catalogue of products, and also an order form at the end.
You can see my pdf brochure here:
http://www.upperside.fr/vijee/mpls09ex/EXHIBITOR%20SPECIAL%20ORDERS2010.pdf
My question is, can I extract only those items selected by a client onto the order form? Right now my order form lists everything with quantity 0 until and unless the client changes it, in which case the order form correctly displays the quantity & product chosen, but I’m wondering if I can have an order form which just lists those items chosen by client.
Thanks in advance,
Vijee
Help! I know this sounds crazy, but I created an email submit button for my form and for some reason when you click submit, it puts the xml or pdf file in the subject line instead of an attachment. Anyone have a clue why it is doing this?
Please help. I can not get the interactive pdf email function to work in Acrobat Reader. What do I need to do to make it work?