Adobe Acrobat 7 TIPS and TRICKS THE 100150 BEST [Electronic resources]

Donna L. Baker; Kristin Kalning; Becky Morgan; Judy Ziajka

نسخه متنی -صفحه : 203/ 84
نمايش فراداده

l xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/l">

  • TIP 72: Starting an Adobe Designer Project.

    Adobe Designer is a forms-designing program that is integrated and accessible either as a separate program or from within Acrobat Professional 7. It is available only in Windows. To access the program from within Acrobat Professional 7, use one of these actions, and follow the prompts:

    • For a blank form, click the Forms task button to display its pull-down menu and choose Create New Form.

      Who's Got the Copy?

      If you build a PDF form in Acrobat Professional 7 and then open the form in Adobe Designer, a copy of the file is opened and your original document is preserved.

    • To make an interactive form from a static form, first open the form in Acrobat. Click the Forms task button to display its pull-down menu and choose Make Form Fillable in Adobe Designer (Figure 72a).

      Figure 72a. Choose from several methods for opening Adobe Designer when you are working in Acrobat Professional 7 in Windows

    • If you have an interactive form open in Acrobat, click the Forms task button to display its pull-down menu and choose Edit Fillable Form.

    • If you want to edit an existing form, open the form in Acrobat and then choose Advanced > Forms > Open Form In Adobe Designer.

    Instead of working through Acrobat, you can work directly in Designer 7. Open the program from the Start menu like other programs, and the Welcome Screen displays. You can choose a new blank form, open an existing form, or work from a template. Let's look at using the templates:

    1.

    Click New From Template on the Welcome Screen and click Close. The Welcome Screen is replaced by the New Form Assistant (Figure 72b).

    Figure 72b. Choose a template to customize in Adobe Designer. In this tip we are using a Leave Request Form template.

    [View full size image]

    You Can't Go Back Again

    If you create form fields in Acrobat Professional 7, you can edit the fields in Adobe Designer. However, if you create a form in Adobe Designer, you can't modify the fields in Acrobat Professional 7.

    2.

    Choose a template, in this example, a Leave Request Form, and click Next.

    3.

    Select how you want the information returned to you on the Return Method pane of the dialog (Figure 72c). The form data can be sent electronically, which is the default. You can give your users the option of returning the data electronically or printing and mailing the form (the option used in this example). They can be allowed to fill in the form and print it only, or they can print the blank form and fill it out manually. Click Next.

    Figure 72c. Select a Return Method. You can automatically create fields that include actions for printing or returning data.

    A Form for Every Purpose

    You can create basic forms either in Acrobat or in Adobe Designer. In addition to the basic type, you can build static, dynamic, and interactive forms. Each type has different characteristics:

    • An interactive form can be filled out online using either Acrobat or Adobe Reader 7. Interactive forms can contain buttons for common activities like printing or saving data to a file.

    • A static form, as the name suggest, displays the same layout regardless of how much data you enter into itfields don't change size to accommodate their contents. Static forms are used with Form Server, an Adobe server product, to merge the form with data.

    • A dynamic form can change its configuration and layout according to how much data is added to it, and is also used in conjunction with Form Server to merge the form and data. In addition, a dynamic form can be interactive.

    4.

    The options on the Return Information pane reflect the choice you made in the Return Method pane. This example uses the option that allows users to both transmit information and also print the form. Type an email address on this pane (Figure 72d) and click Finish.

    Figure 72d. If you choose an option that automatically returns the form data to you by email, type an email address in this pane of the wizard.

    5.

    The New Form Assistant closes and the form displays in the program window in the Body Pages view (Figure 72e). Choose File > Save and save the form. Alternatively, you can save the form in different formats. Choose File > Save As and choose a form type from the Save as type pull-down list.

    Figure 72e. Your new form opens in Adobe Designer 7 in the default working view, called the Body Pages view.