How to Create a fillable PDF form With Adobe Acrobat 9 PRo

Clayton Boessen  

1 TABLE OF CONTENTS2 CREATING A PDF FILE.................33 ADDING FORM AREAS TO YOUR DOCUMENT......................................4

3.1 TEXT FIELDS...................................53.1.1 Text Fields Continued..............6

3.2 CHECK BOXES................................73.3 RADIO BUTTONS.............................83.4 COMBO BOX..................................93.5 BUTTONS.....................................103.6 DIGITAL SIGNATURE......................................................................................................

3.7 EXITING FORM EDITING.................................................................................................4 ADDING HYPER LINKS.................................................................................5 FINISHING YOUR PDF..................................................................................6 DISTRIBUTION OF YOUR PDF.......................................................................7 DISTRIBUTION OF YOUR PDF CONTINUED.....................................................................................................

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2 CREATING A PDF FILEThe best way to start the creating of a PDF form is to create the original document using Microsoft Word or some other word processing software. This helps to create the base design of the document, which is easy to edit. (Remember to keep a copy of this original document in case you need to change the layout of the form in the future)

Next open up the Adobe Acrobat Pro program. Click file at the top left of the program window and click create PDF. After this there will be different options of how to create the PDF from, choose from file.

Locate the file from the location that it has been saved. Click the file and choose open. This may take some time for the file to convert to a PDF, depending on the size of the document.

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3 ADDING FORM AREAS TO YOUR DOCUMENTTo add fields to the document, click the forms option. Then choose add or edit fields. The first time you do this with the PDF, there will be the option to scan the document for fields.

Select yes to this popup, Acrobat will scan the document to see if there are any areas that fields.

After Acrobat has finished scanning, add any fields that Acrobat has missed. Acrobat has the ability to create several different field types. Each type has many options, to customize how each field will act.

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3.1 TEXT FIELDS

Text fields are useful if you want participants to enter unique data values. First click “Add New Field” in the form edit mode. Then select text field from the drop down.

There will be a blue rectangle to model the text field. Use the crosshairs to place the text field in the correct location.

Once the text field is in the desired area, left click to place it. There will then be a popup that appears like this. This allows for changes to be made to some of the field’s main properties. Give the field a name to help distinguish it from others objects. Click in the require field check box to require the participant enter data in this field.

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3.1.1 Text Fields Continued

If there are more properties that need to be changed click on the blue “All Properties” text, or double click on the field to open this window. Here you have access to all the property changes available. Some very important properties are under the general tab. Here it is possible to change the name of the field, change what will appear when it is hovered over, make the field required, or make the field read only if you don’t want participants change the data. Other changes available are to limit the number of characters that can be entered in the field.

Other important properties for text fields are in the format tab. Here you can change what character types are allowed in the field. You can make the field numbers only by choosing number. You can make the field a phone number or zip code by selecting special and then selecting the appropriate field under that.

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3.2 CHECK BOXES

Another important field that is available is the check box this is useful if participants are given a binary choice of yes or no. (Note this is not quite as helpful as a radio button 3.3) To create a check box select the “Add New Field” button, then select check box from the list. This will give a crosshair to help place the box.

Once it is place give the check box a name, you can also force the field to be required if needed. Check boxes have fewer properties that are available to change than text fields.

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3.3 RADIO BUTTONS

Radio buttons are similar to check boxes, but have the ability to form groups that can be forced to accept only one choice out of the group. To create a radio button click the “Add New Field” button then from the list select radio button. There will be a crosshair to help place the button. To form a group of buttons you must give each button the same group name. One simple way of adding buttons to a group is to click the blue “Add another button to group” link. This will create another button with the same properties as the first.

To create a button group that can accept only one answer you will need to adjust the “Button Values” of the buttons in the group. To do this double click on the button that needs to be adjusted. This opens the button property window open click on the options tab.

Once in the options tab change the button value to “No”. Do this for all of the buttons except one, this button will be the default button. On the default button change the value to “Yes” and check the check box that says, “Button is checked by default”. This will make it so the default button is check when the form is opened. Changing the value so only one is yes will make it so that only one option can be selected at a time from the group.

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3.4 COMBO BOX

A combo box is used to provide a list of choices that a participant can choose from. To create one click on “Add New Field” and the combo box from the list. Once chosen there will be a crosshair to place the combo box. Place the combo box and give the field a name.

To add items to the combo box go to the combo boxes properties. Once here click the options tab. Here type the name of the choices you want to add in the item field. Next click the add button on the right side of the window. The item will be added to the item list. (It may be a good idea to add a default option to the list, select one item to do this)

If the order of items in the list needs to be changed, select the item the needs to be moved. Then click then up or down button on the right, continue to do this until the order of items is satisfactory. If an item needs to be removed click the item name and press delete. You can also check the sort items check box to automatically sort the items.

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3.5 BUTTONS

Buttons are useful for triggering a certain action. A particularly useful action is to submit the form when the button is clicked. To create a button click the “Add New Field” button, then select Button from the list. Use the crosshairs to place the button in the correct place. Next give the button a name, do this from the properties popup dialog.

To change the functions of the button, go into the all properties windows. Select the action tab from the list. Here choose what the button will do. To submit the form choose “Submit a Form” from the list of actions. This will open a window that asks for a URL link the submission will be sent to. Enter in the URL and choose what form the data will be sent as. Click ok to accept the properties of the button.

3.6 DIGITAL SIGNATURE

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Digital signatures are an important part of protecting a document and the answers submitted by them. Once digitally signed a document can be protected from having any more changes made to it. This is important for keeping the document answers genuine. To add a digital signature click the “Add New Field” button, then select digital signature from the list. Use the crosshairs to place the signature field in the correct place.

To prevent changes from being made to the document after it has been signed double click the signature field to open up the properties windows. Click on the signed tab. From here there are several choices available to control what happens when the document is signed. For important documents with sensitive information select the “Mark as read-only” button and make it apply to all fields.

3.7 EXITING FORM EDITING

To quit editing the form click the “Close Form Editing” button on the top right of the Adobe Acrobat window.

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4 ADDING HYPER LINKSSometimes it is not possible to fit all the information participants need to know on a single PDF form. To help with this add hyperlinks to a website or file inside the PDF form. To do this click the tools button at the top of the Acrobat window. Then select advanced editing. Once selected click on the “Link Tool” option in the list.

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After clicking the link tool there will be a small pointer, use this to draw a box around the area of the hyperlink

A dialog box will appear here, choose what type of link you are wanting to create. Here it is possible to change the appearance of the link, to fit the style of your form. To create a web link chose the option to “Open a web page” and select next. After this a new dialogue box will appear. Enter in the URL for the web page inside of this dialogue box and click ok.

After clicking ok you have created your hyperlink, it will appear in a blue box like

this.

5 FINISHING YOUR PDFOnce you have finished adding all needed fields and are happy with the layout of the form, you need to publish/distribute it. To do this click the “Forms” button near the top of Acrobat. From the dropdown list select distribute form.

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If some of the fields have default values added you will get a dialogue box similar to this. Select no on this if you wish to keep those values in the document.

6 DISTRIBUTION OF YOUR PDFThere are multiple different ways to distribute a PDF form. After clicking “Distribute Form”, a dialogue box will appear that asks how you want to distribute the form. Click the dropdown arrow to make your distribution selection.

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Here is how to distribute the form using email. After clicking “Manually collect responses in my email inbox” the dialogue box will change to something similar to this. Click next to open up the next dialogue box.

This dialogue box will allow you to enter in the information about the email address that you wish to send participants responses to. This information will be send with the form to help participants identify who the form is from.

7 DISTRIBUTION OF YOUR PDF CONTINUEDOnce you have filled out the email address information click next at the bottom of the dialogue box. After clicking next a new dialogue box will appear. This dialogue box will ask you to enter in the email address that you want to send the responses to. Enter in the email address that you want to use to collect responses. Once you have enter the correct email address select send at the bottom of the dialogue box.

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The next dialogue box that appears will ask how you want to distribute the form. You can distribute the file from Acrobat or manually as a PDF file. Select “Save a local copy and manually sent it later” this will save a copy of the PDF to the local machine. Choose the destination of where you wish to save the file by selecting the browse button. Once you have found the location you wish to save it at click next. Then click finish at the following dialogue box. You have now successfully distributed your PDF form.

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