If you’re like me then you like everything from your website down to your legal contracts to look well designed and function to your client’s liking — which in most cases is… easily!
The problem with creating forms and other documentation for a client to fill out is most are created in Microsoft Word, or other form of word processors, because we’re afraid the client won’t have the right software to open, add to it and return it.
In doing so, the design is compromised because of word processor’s inability to function like professional design software. While MS Word is typically found on most computers and regarded as the most compatible document to send someone to fill out and return, that doesn’t mean you can’t have your cake (aka “good design capabilities”) and eat it too (aka “compatibility).
Adobe Acrobat Professional to the rescue!
Adobe Acrobat Professional gives you the ability to turn your previously designed, standard PDF file into an interactive form that clients can download, easily fill out, print or effortlessly return to you by email. All they need is the free Adobe Acrobat Reader, which can be download here. And most clients I’ve spoke with already have it installed.
Here’s how you can create your own interactive PDF:
Create your document
First, design your documentation or form in the software of your choice. InDesign is my first choice of page layout programs, but feel free pick your own…
Once you’re completely satisfied with the design, save it as a PDF.
Open it in Acrobat Pro
From the top toolbar, choose File > Create PDF > From File… Then, choose the PDF file you created above and click Open.
You should now see your beautifully designed PDF open in Acrobat Pro with a toolbar that looks similar to the highlighted image above. This toolbar is where you provide interactivity to your static PDF.
Adding Interactivity
Select the Text Field Tool (pictured below):
Drag out boxed areas on your PDF where you would like the client to add their information. NOTE: Acrobat can also use its auto-detection feature to assign text box areas to predetermined underlined areas.
After each box you create, a dialog box will appear that allows you to customize the text field area. Below you can see my changes, but feel free to customize to your liking.
Adding the ‘Submit’ Button
Now that you have your text areas specified, it’s time to add a ’submit’ button so your clients can easily email you back the completed form.
For this we need to select the Combo Box tool (highlighted below):
Once again, drag out an area where you would like your ’submit’ button to appear.
Again, a dialog box will appear. While you can customize these settings as well, the steps (images) I have listed below are essential for making the form submittal by email.
Once you click ‘Add…’ a new dialog box will appear. Change these settings to:
Click ‘Ok’ and continue making changes to the other tabs:
Click ‘Close’. You should now have text areas and a submit button that looks similar to this:
Last Step… Customize the Form Preferences
This step is not necessary but handy!
From the menu bar choose Acrobat > Preferences… (or Edit > Preferences on a PC). From here you are able to change the default yellow highlighted text areas (seen above) to better fit the look of your form.
That’s it! You now have a PDF document that can be edited by your clients and quickly emailed back to you.
Do you create interactive PDF forms for your clients? Do they like it?
That’s great, i’ve been wanting to get round to doing this for ages but everytime i go to look into it i’ve been put off by lengthy tutorials and boring text heavy manuals… this was concise and straight forward and now i’m gonna have a go. Many many thanks!
I’m not put off by learning the software, I’m put off by the COST of the software. Many offices (especially non-profits) just can’t afford the cost of Adobe software. If you’re a non-profit, you can get it fairly cheaply through TechSoup, but others just can’t afford it.
I’ve wanted to figure this out for EVER! Thanks for breaking it down like this!
Jodith,
All the client needs is the free Adobe Acrobat Reader to be able to fill in the fields. In order to create it, you need to have Acrobat Pro, but most designers should have it already if they have the Creative Suite.
Nice one, this is great, very useful, im going to create my own!
Hey Brian, thanks for that. I’ve been able to use Adobe Acrobat but when it comes to footing the bill for the software for a project or two… YIKES! I’m with Heather when it comes to the cost.
I was just thinking about this last week. Perfect timing.
So I’m guessing the client will need a connection to the internet when they click submit yes? What happens if they try to submit without a connection, does anyone know? Error message?
Great post Brian! I always need a refresher when I do these, since it’s few and far between that I need to create one. Great resource to add to my bookmarks - Thanks : )
Good stuff!! I’ve been wanting to do this for a little while, and I now i can just follow your directions.
Much thanks,
Simon
Hi, what about using OpenOffice Draw, to acchive something similar? Comboboxes can be drawn there as well, you can export it to pdf ormat etc. Did I mention it’s free?
What version of Acrobat pro did you use for this. On version 7pro it forces me to another program called adobe designer.
Lizardboi,
OpenOffice is not really meant for design. While it does have some design elements, it can’t really compete with InDesign or Quark for layout. Also if you create combo boxes and export OpenOffice document as a PDF, can it be edited?
Wabbit,
To my knowledge I’m only aware that it works in 8 Pro and the new 9. Not too sure about 7… If you have the CS3 package or higher it allows you to create them with Acrobat. I’ll try to look into 7 for you.
I noticed you blurred out your phone number. FYI, you left it in there on one of the images.
THANKSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!
For this delicious tutorial; it makes our clients contact more direct.
Thanks again because sharing your knowledge you are getting an internet more friendly for all.
Vin,
— good eye!
Haha! Yes, but then I forgot that my number is on my contact info on my portfolio, so it really didn’t matter
Elcodigodebarras,
Glad you found use from the tutorial. I am very particular for making all of my documentation match my brand, so this works out nicely for me. Allows me to design as I like and still make it easy on the client to provide responses. Thanks for the comment!
we use this for our budgets, faxes and invoices… is great
Brian, I have made one up in acrobat 7, it directs me to adobe designer for designing the form. The only problem i get is with Mac users who press the send button and nothing happens. I looked into this and it seems Mac opens the pdf in viewer and not acrobat.
In this case the send button will not work.
If you do have a Mac let me know and i will send you my form and you can try.
I appreciate that. Let me know.
Jonathan ,
I would think if they have the form in front of them they must of downloaded the form or received it in an email? No?
Greg
Rather than using InDesign for creating print layouts and PDF’ I’ve been making good use of Scribus. Scribus is an Open Source clone of InDesign with direct to PDF printing built into it. There’s no question that InDesign is a much more powerful program however since I only do a few print jobs a year the price of the software is far too high especially when Scribus does everything I need it to and it is free.
Crazywabbit,
I do have a Mac and created mine on it and works fine in both Acrobat Reader and Apple’s Preview program. I’m not sure what could be the problem other than 7.0 doesn’t work as well as 8 and the new 9. If you like send me and email and I’ll try it out
Nice! I’ve wondered how to do this, but never really looked into it. I honestly won’t use this too much, but it makes things look very professional, so the few times I can I will! Thanks for this! *Stumbled*
I second the comment about using Scribus to create the PDF forms. They have a tutorial on their wiki on how to create a form http://wiki.scribus.net/index.php/How_to_create_an_e-Mail_PDF_Survey_Form.
Ethan,
I’m sure there are various ways to create PDF forms, but no with the power and design capabilities that InDesign has. I can’t seem to justify on compromising on solid design elements. Neat looking program and tutorial though. Thanks!
Thanks for this. Bookmarked.
Perfect timing. I’ve a “small” problem however…. I need a good tutorial on creating a form with InDesign. Any help is appreciated.
Paulo,
Do you have any experience in InDesign? If so, just create a standard print design… You don’t do anything special in InDesign rather than what you would normally do with it. If you have no prior experience, I’m sure you can find some information on Google or Adobe’s website. Also Lynda.com is a great paid-for service you can subscribe to if you are really serious into learning it (and any other program that you could ever want to learn as well). Hope this helps… if not let me know what else I could do to be of further assistance.
Brian,
Thanks for the advices. I’ve no experience with InDesign hence my first post. However I’m going to consider the Lynda.com since they have very useful information in there “courses”.
Merry Christmas.
I use Adobe LiveCycle Designer to create my forms. It is a drag and drop type interface, very easy to use!
You can see an example of a finished form here:
http://justcreativedesign.com/web/logo.pdf
The best bit about it is when a client fills it out, you can import the data back into the form for easy printing / reference.
Jacob,
I enjoyed seeing your interactive PDF. Well done. As far as LiveCycle is concerned, unfortunately it is not available for Mac users, but it does look like a great, intuitive product, even though the results from my tutorial are very similar to LiveCycle.
Hope you had a great holiday!
I just did this using Adobe Pro 6 on a XP Pro PC; thanks for the easy tutorial. It was just what i needed. The hardest part for me was the first step in finding the text field tool. It wasn’t a defalt in my system so I had to go find it in tools, then advanced editing then forms; then I was able to add it to my toolbar for future reference during the rest of the tutorial.
Thanks for the post! Very useful. I have one question though, could these pdf’s be used say for a contact page in a webpage or would it had to be coded?
Anytime Liz. Unfortunately something like that would have to be coded for the web specifically, but its definitely not impossible. Maybe I’ll do a post on it
Thank you very much for this, I will certainly be creating one of these.
I have created a form just like the one you describe, but I have having issues with PC’s using reader. When they click the submit button I created to send the email, it pops up with an error message saying something along the lines of ‘action not permited’. Looks like lots of other people are having this exact same issue. Have you heard of this or have a solution?
Mike,
Hmmm… I have not heard or experienced the message you stated. When you tried it, did the PC you attempted it on have an email set up in a mail client like Outlook or Entourage? Just trying to think what went wrong. Others who used a PC seemed to have success. What version of reader and pro are you/they using?
You made it very easy so thank you for providing this, a 5 page survey in double quick time. I used with iWork Pages for the layout. A total breeze and a lot cheaper than inDesign.
Thanks for the tips, it’s so much better to use these than a bunch of paperwork or crazy Excel spreadsheets!
Good blog post. We’ve been doing this for our clients for some time now. Interactive PDF forms have the added benefit of allowing users to print the document out and return it via ’snail mail’ too.
With tax season coming up, many of you should know that most of the PDF’s that can be downloaded from the IRS.gov website are interactive and can be filled out on your computer.
I generally keep a filled out W-9 on my machine so that I can submit it to requesters very easily. Their accounting department really appreciates having a copy alongside my first invoice.
Nice article.
Nice article
The thing is, I have to use Acrobat Pro. Any other solutions, say with Linux?
Like with “Action not permitted” you will also have trouble with people who are using a webmail “client” and do not use Outlook or anything else.
Additionally it Adobe still needs to improve the way to collate received data. At the moment you have to reimport emailed results into your data set one by one (unless I am retard and I did not find the function to do it “properly”). It would be nice to just suck in all the data files you received back from your respondents into your master from or collate them as a spreadsheet (which you can do after you import everything into a master data sheet)….
Anyhow it is a good idea just needs to be refined from the data collection point of view - which becomes important when you need an ad hoc solution for a lot of respondents. Personally I will never use it again and will go for some free form/poll hosting service instead - less hassle - better output and no problems with firewalls.
I have done a complete interactive sales aid for a client as a PDF. It is working beautifully and they are loving it - however when the first click through happens from the first to the second page in full screen mode, the page size shrinks considerably… and its all been laid out in Quark in one document.
Any ideas why I am getting the page size jump? Its only happening on the PC side, I’ve tested it on laptops and monitors on both platforms and it just started happening, and only in full screen mode.
Your ideas would be very helpful. Thank you!
Shayne
Unfortunately, I’m not a PC user and have not been able to test it on a PC. Many of my clients are PC-based and never heard complaints about it. I’ll will do some asking around and try to get a better response to you.
Hi Brian,
I recently created my first interactive PDF form and I now have a little problem that you might be able to help me fix.
I have an interactive box for a zip code that is giving me problem. When I try to enter a zip code I get this comment:
“the value entered does not match the format of the field [RZIPCode]”
How can I correct this?
Afovea,
I’ll have to look into that for you. Feel free to email me, brianhoff@thedesigncubicle.com and i can look a little further into the problem with the right details.
Brian, I’ve been scouring the web for tutorials on this very thing, except now that I have made on using “designer” and published it to web I’m wondering if I can send the form results to an ASP script so that the PDF could directly be mailed with out having to save the file first or point the form to an external email app. Essentially just use Acrobat or Designer to create the form and pass the data on to something like form2mail. Any suggestions???
Regarding Philip Downer’s comment about tax forms, specifically W9 - I was filling one out recently using Adobe Acrobat, the first time I’ve filled one out this way, but when I got to the signature line I got stumped.. I have a digital signature on-hand (just a scanned signature in PNG format) and I was trying to just insert it in the correct spot but couldn’t figure out how. I ended up just opening the PDF form in Illustrator and placing the PNG… What’s the best way to insert signatures through Acrobat? Is there a way?
Daniel, see this article from Adobe… http://www.adobe.com/security/digsig.html
About half way down the page you’ll see Create a digital signature.pdf under Certified Documents. Hope this helps.
Dan
Hello– is there a way to override the security in an interactive from so that I can edit it (it was created by our former ad agency)? I am able to make the changes I need, but upon saving, I am unable to maintain a very important feature– saving the form. That is, folks filling it out need to be able to save it to their computer (it is very involved and can take clients in out industry months to fill out). After I made my edits, I was alerted that this feature was no longer available. I see in the PDF Properties that Document Assembly and Creation of Template Pages is not allowed?
Hi Brian,
I’m an illustrator just learning Photoshop , very traditional painter in watercolors & acrylics. I just started painting pet portraits on the side and wanted to make an interactive commission form. Using Adobe Acrobat 7 on a Mac and I did the form over 4 times and simply cannot get the submit button to work. I tried sending it cack and forth to myself from the above email addy to my gmail addy, like someone said above tries to open in preview, doesn’t work…
So hard to find a way to do this on a Mac (g4, OSX10.4.1)
I’m so frustrated, I really want to make this happen!
If you send me your email addy, maybe I could send it to you.
Thanks so much!
Wendy Edelson
Shannon. Unfortunately, if you are using Acrobat Reader to fill out a form you will not be able to save the completed form. It can be printed, but not saved. Not really a security issue. Rather a limitation of Reader. If you are using Acrobat Pro then you can save the file under a new name.
This limitation has definitely cause me to use these types of forms much less than I would like to. I have a creative brief in this format but few of my clients are willing to invest in Acrobat Pro. It would be nice if they could at least save a copy to their machines in addition to submitting the file to me.
Brian,
Wendy Edelson again here, it was very late when I posted the previous post.
After 5 hours of sleep I remembered that I had meant to write, also, that when the form is opened in Adobe Reader and I click “Submit” a message comes up and tells me that “This Operation Is Not Permitted”
Some other instructions on forms from PDFs inform me that “if the users that fill in the PDF form are using Adobe Reader you must choose either FDF or XFDF for the Export Format option……” I tried this in the “Action” section but this is not what the person meant…still doesn’t work….
any ideas why not?
Help please
thank you
best, Wendy
Hi again Brian,
ok last comment
I changed PDF to FDF in Actions and clicked all fields and now it opens perfectly in Adobe Reader.
The only place it is nonfunctional is in Preview, but if I download it, then I can fill out the form and click submit and it all works!
Is the Preview nonfunctional thing normal?
thanks
I wonder why yours worked with PDF checked? You’re on a Mac, too, right?
I would love a response on all this.
thanks
Wendy
I seconded Jodith’s comment regarding the COST. Apparently in its EULA there’s a statement that only up to 500 data can be collected, whether by paper or online submission, per form. So legally any forms created using Acrobat pro or Lifecycle requires the Reader Extension bit to let more than 500 users and this costs heaps. Please correct me if I am wrong and I am certainly happier if I am wrong….
Thanx for your helpful post,
i’d like to ask if you know a way to put a javascript that can convert numeric values to words like when i write 300 it writes three hundred in another box
Nice tutorial. Simple and worked perfectly for my needs. I wonder why you used a combo field rather than a button field for the submit button?
Hi, Can you open the interactive forms created in Acrobat 7 pro from any basic acrobat reader and submit via email?
Hi,
Thanks for the tutorial. I just got Adobe Acrobat 9 and this tutorial will help. I recently, though, created an interactive form with Acrobat 7 and now I see that when numbers are typed in, commas are added. Very inconvenient in phone numbers. Do you have any trouble-shooting ideas? Or a direction I could go in? You are the main source on a web search for Adobe Acrobat!
Thanks for the informative tutorial.