Expert: InDesign Pro - 3/18/2009

Question
I have created a form using InDesign, exported it as a pdf and opened it in Acrobat Profession 6.0. I made the pdf a fillable form. Now a change has been made to the InDesign document. How can I link the two documents so I don't have to re-do the fillable pdf? I want the InDesign change to automatically update the fillable form. Thanks.

Answer
Hi Cathy, thanks for the question.

The short answer is, unfortunately, you can't.

But, using a newer version of Acrobat might help. In Acrobat 8 and newer, you can automatically generate a fillable form in one click. Acrobat looks for lines and checkboxes and converts them for you. So if you make your InDesign file keeping this in mind, it wouldn't take much to update the form if there are changes. There are some tricks to making InDesign and the newer versions of Acrobat work together better, so if you do upgrade, you can follow up with more specific questions.

Adobe also has another program you might be interested in, however, it is only available on  the PC platform. It's called Adobe Designer and you can find more information about it at http://www.adobe.com/products/server/formdesigner/index.html

Thanks, hope this helps. Let me know if you have any further questions.

Scott