About Glenn Fraller Expertise Even though I am donating my time to AllEperts.com and I am an Expert, this does NOT mean I know ALL the answers to ALL questions! It seems to me today, people seem to want too much from certain people. I am here because I want to help lead people in a direction I would go. My expertise is limited to Adobe Acrobat 5 (PC) and Acrobat 7 Professional (MAC). If you have version 8 (PC) or (MAC) I, now I am speaking for me only, I would read the help file(s) and research on the Internet every where until I found and understood the solution to my challenge.
Experience Every business day I use Enfocus Pitstop, a plug-in for Adobe Acrobat 5 (PC) and Professional 7 (MAC). Without it, there isn't that much that can be done without the hassel of opening the PDF within Adobe Illustrator. Then there are font issues! Education/Credentials Degreed in Industrial Education and Technology, School of Graphic Communications and work in the prepress field everyday as a toubleshooter.
From the past 4-5 days I have been trying to put commenting and reviewing of an interactive form I created in Acrobat professionsal 7 but havent gone anywhere with it. Its really frustrating. Please see if you can help me out.
I created a fom that has drop down options (like YES, NO, N/A) and fields in it. I have it ready to go. Then I learnt that people with a reader only wont be able to write and save over it. I found out the 'Submit for a Web review' option and have been trying to get it to work. What I have done so far is -
1) When the form comes up I select my file as file to upload on a network folder which I KNOW EVERYONE CAN ACCESS.
2) When it asks for the second file I browsed to the same location and asked it to save as 'reviw_results.pdf' to be clear.
3) Now when I send it to my colluegues they cant open it. I sent it to myself and I can open it in web browser and comment and choose the answers. But when I use the 'send/receibve comments' button some ODBC thing starts popping up.
There are several other problems. Will it be possible for you to tell me step by step what all I need to do? I know this might be a lot but I am just stalled at this point. Any development would be really appreciated.
Please let me know what you have to say.
thanks
Himanshu
P.S. there will be at least 20 people who will need to login to this location and answer thier part of questions.
Answer Good Morning Himanshu,
I am sure this is the beginning of a multiple answer session.
And that is OK by me as I will learn too.
From what I gathered from your notes is this: You created a form and people with Reader (only) cannot save the form after filling it in. First off, this is correct, unless you add Special Usage Rights to your form: You can add commenting capabilities for email-based reviews directly from Acrobat Professional. You add other additional usage rights by using a server extension. For more information, see the Adobe website at www.adobe.com/products/server/readerextensions/main.html (English only).
Furthermore - just in case. . . you need to know . . . condensed from the help files.
There are three types of Acrobat forms:
1. Fill-and-print PDF forms are typically digital presentations of paper forms. Fill-and-print forms may contain interactive form fields or static form fields; either way, the user must manually deliver the form, such as via postal mail or fax machine.
2. Submit-by-email PDF forms contain a button that either extracts the form data from the PDF form and attaches that data to an email message or attaches the filled-in PDF form to an email message.
3. Submit on-line PDF forms contain a button that sends the form data to an online repository, such as a database.
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To control various aspects of your interaction with form fields, use the Forms preferences.
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Note: These preferences aren't saved with a PDF form. The Forms preferences affect only how Acrobat handles forms that you open.
To set Forms preferences:
1. Choose Edit > Preferences (Windows) or Acrobat > Preferences (Mac OS), and select Forms on the left.
2. To set the General forms preferences, select any of the following:
a. To automatically perform all field calculations upon user entry, select Automatically Calculate Field Values.
b. To display which form field currently has the focus, select Show Focus Rectangle.
d. To retain forms data in the Internet browser, select Keep Forms Data Temporarily Available On Disk.
c. To display a plus sign (+) indicating when text fields exceed the bounds specified when the fields were created, select Show Text Field Overflow Indicator.
d. To hide the forms document message bar by default whenever a PDF form is opened in Adobe Reader, select that option.
e. To display the appearance of a form field when creating or editing forms, select Show Field Preview When Creating Or Editing Form Fields.
3. To set the Highlight Color forms preferences, do any of the following:
a. To display a black outline around a form field when you place the pointer over that form field, select Show Border Hover Color For Fields.
b. If you want to change the color that appears in the background of all form fields when you select Highlight Fields in a PDF form's Document Message Bar, click the Fields Highlight Color button to select a color.
c. To display a particular color border around form fields that the form creator has made required, click the button next to Required Fields Highlight Color, and select a color. The color appears in required form fields only after you attempt to submit the form.
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To create a submit button:
1. On the Forms toolbar, select the Button tool, and create a button. (See Creating interactive buttons.)
2. Double-click the button to open the Button Properties dialog box.
3. Click the Actions tab, and select Mouse Up from the Select Trigger menu.
4. Select Submit a Form from the Select Action menu, and then click Add.
5. In the Submit Form Selections dialog box, do one of the following in the Enter A URL For This Link box:
a. To send the form data to a web server, enter the destination URL.
b. To send the form data to an email address, enter mailto: followed by the email address. For example, mailto:nobody@adobe.com.
6. Select an Export Format option:
a. FDF exports as an FDF file. You can choose to export the form fields data, comments, incremental changes to the PDF file, or all three. The Incremental Changes To The PDF option is useful for exporting a digital signature in a way that is easily read and reconstructed by a server.
Note: If the server returns data to the user in FDF, or XFDF formats, the server's URL must end with the #FDF suffix; for example, http://myserver/cgi-bin/myscript#FDF.
b. HTML exports as an HTML file.
c. XFDF exports as an XML file. You can choose to export the form fields data, comments, or both.
d. PDF exports the entire PDF file that is your form. Although this creates a larger file than the FDF option, it is useful for preserving digital signatures.
Note: 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.
7. For Field Selection, do one of the following:
a. To export all form fields even if the form fields do not contain values, select All Fields.
b. To export only specific form fields, select Only These. Click Select Fields, and then indicate the form fields to include, and whether you want to include empty fields.
8. Select Convert Dates To Standard Format to export all form dates in a single format, no matter how they are entered in the form.
9. Click OK to accept the selections.
10. Click another tab in the Button Properties dialog box to continue defining properties for the button, or click Close.
OK, that sums up this session.
Keep me informed as to your success.
