Creating emailable forms. Is Acrobat the way?

[tuqqer@adobeforums.com]

My clients need to fill out about 4 pages of questions before we start working together. Up until now, I've used the antiquated email form-print out-fax back method, which is driving me nuts.

I'm new to Acrobat, especially the version that came with CS. Can Acrobat now create a PDF that has typable fields?

How are others doing this?

I'd love to hear from anybody with any experience in this. Including if excel or some other method is the way to go.

[Aandi_Inston@adobeforums.com]

I would recommend forgetting the idea of e-mailable forms completely.
Client email is just way too unreliable. Many people have no client
e-mail at all. In the worst case the user thinks the form is sent,
but it wasn't. How many can you afford to lose?

The way to do forms is to submit them. That does NOT mean e-mail, it
means to send to a web site. You can use HTML or PDF forms for this
purpose, with similar web scripting.

Aandi Inston

[tuqqer@adobeforums.com]

Aandi, thanks. I was thinking I'd go with something web-based, but I was also hoping that a PDF solution was available. Dang.

[pjonesCET@adobeforums.com]

This is all well and good. But, the information and instruction from adobe to do this is complicated at best and requires special server software, and server Adobe is willing to offer for thousands of dollars. requires creating cgi scripts, have cgi capable server handy and even needs involvement of MySQL.

I've tried to figure out how to do this. And found its not worth the effort. And being a Non-Profit can't afford the expense.

Setting up for posting to a server, and sending a retrieval signal to a designated person to pickup, should be just as easy as setting up to send to an email address. But; its geared to requiring an expensive go between to get up and running. In my case. I've decided it a nice pipe dream and next year to go back to requiring everyone to download the form and mail.

[Aandi_Inston@adobeforums.com]

> requires special server software

No, it doesn't. It just requires perfectly normal web programming
skills and a typical server offering scripting facilities. I
appreciate you don't want to go down that path, but it really isn't so
very unusual. Every web site with a form on it does it. But someone
needs web programming skills, certainly.

> and server Adobe is willing to offer for thousands of dollars.

Something else entirely.

>Setting up for posting to a server, sending a retrieval signal to a designated person to pickup. should be just as easy as setting up to send to an email address.

You mean, you'd like web programming to be easy without having to
learn how to do it. Well, many would (except those making a living
from it, I guess).

Aandi Inston

[pjonesCET@adobeforums.com]

Problem is those who do non-Profit like me was told your now in charge of this can't afford it, besides not having the skills, and too old to learn, or anywhere to learn them. We are stuck. they folks that do this for a business, would not be affected. Big business that, needs stuff don't don't wish to get their hands dirty , and call on a pro anyway.