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Forms... Acrobat Forms Author Plug-in Dynamic Forms Creating Business Cards Automatically Filling Out College Applications Automatically Accessing IRS Forms Creating Forms Using Exchange Forms is rapidly becoming the high ground of virtual net implementation. Whether for internet or intrament, information must be collected, organized, stored, retrievable in many different configurations and context, and made presentable. The worlds of IT technicians and graphic designers need to be integrated as never before. There is a strong need for the technicians to think in more graphic terms just as it is important for designers to learn how to deal with databases. Acrobat PDF file technology offers an exciting common ground. Existing forms can be scanned and Captured from paper to make PDFs, or digital form files can be distilled to PDF. Using Acrobat Exchange and a new array of plug-ins, these forms can be overlaid with form fields that make them interactive and usable off of CD ROM's, on network servers, or over the web. The data can be submitted to on-line databases. Increasingly, new ways are being developed to allow developers to dynamically retrieve stored data to generate forms "on-the-fly." So, for the first time, data that has always been accessible but largely unreadable, now can be "packaged" and delivered in a broad range of wonderful new ways. For important resources (mostly PDF files containing tips and tricks plus links to sample sites) that will help you get the most out of Acrobat's form capabilities go to the Adobe Acrobat Resources page. New resources will be made available here on a regular basis, so you may want to bookmark this page for convenience.

1. Acrobat Forms Author Plug-in

(Released On  01/26/98) Adobe announces and offers the Acrobat Forms Author Plug-in--a free, downloadable 3.5 update plugin that enables Acrobat Exchange 3.01 users to create forms with the following new features (see also their .pdf brochure): JavaScript can be used for performing actions such as client-side field validation and calculations; it also allows greater format control and improved form intelligence. To get a description of JavaScript functionality in Acrobat using the new Forms plug-in, download the Acrobat Forms JavaScript Object Specification (PDF 358K) available with the plug-in or downloadable here. Export Forms allows users to save a form and its data to a local hard drive. This feature is only available in Acrobat 3.0 and Acrobat Exchange VPP. Dynamic Page Templates allow the creator to specify a first, last, and any number of middle pages to support form applications such as database publishing and high-end printing of bills and other forms. Authoring Enhancements, such as the new layout grid, make it easier to align form fields. Other enhancements include support for multiple field selection and editing of field properties, which reduce creation and editing time. Embedded PDF Graphics Support allows the user to embed PDF graphics within forms and then submit those graphics to a Web server. Send Acrobat Forms data to a database. Acrobat Forms work with Web servers via standard Web server CGI scripts. In fact, a PDF form can replace HTML forms with little or no change to existing scripts. If your Web server software can connect to your corporate database, you should be able to write CGI scripts that take form data and populate your database and vice versa. The Acrobat FDF Toolkit, which allows you to easily create and parse the Acrobat Forms Data Format (FDF), is available through Adobe Developer Relations on our Web site. It allows you to manipulate form information as a data tree, and extract and populate forms with graphical data. The FDF Toolkit comes as a C library with Perl and ActiveX(TM) wrappers on a variety of platforms. Acrobat Reader 3.01 users should install the Acrobat Forms Fill-in Plug-in 3.5 Update to use the new forms features in PDF files that were created using the Forms Author Plug-in 3.5 Update. The HAHTsite Enterprise Solution Module (ESM) for Adobe Acrobat (available as a free download) provides developers with a rich set of tools for creating and deploying dynamic, data-driven PDF forms. Using HAHTsite and the ESM for Acrobat, Exchange users can streamline business processes by replacing paper forms with interactive e-forms that interface directly with business applications and databases.

2. Creating Dynamic Forms

A company called NetFormation, Inc. specializes in Acrobat Forms development and creating dynamic forms using a new Acrobat Forms utility called Face It!™. They offer two on-line demos which "illustrate how FDF streams created with the Face It! utility can dynamically customize PDF documents. Face It! works on a stand-alone computer or removable media, across an intranet, or over the Internet."

3. Creating Business Cards Automatically

An interesting application of filling out an HTML form and generating PDF files on the fly can be found at the Originalab web site (in the beautiful Lake Siljan area in Sweden!) They offer a free demonstration of building a PDF file of business card designs (22 of them) from one set of input form data. Try it, it's impressive.

4. Filling Out College Applications Automatically

One of the truly useful implementations of PDF is the free APPLY! web site that is being managed by Review.com in association with the Princeton Review. It is an invaluable reference for High School students and their parents who are comparing colleges, trying to arrange financial aid, and filling out applications. It contains more than 500 college applications all saved as PDF files that can be filled out and printed from the installed Reader on your machine. One of the nice features of the service is the addition of a personal profile form that contains generic information about the applicant that is bound to be requested on each application. Once the student fills out the profile, he/she does not have to fill out the same information on each successive form.

5. Accessing IRS Forms Available in PDF

The Internal Revenue Service has decided to dramatically reduce their printing, mailing, and customer service overhead by making all tax forms available on-line in the PDF format. Now CPAs the world over can get updates to all the latest forms on demand.

6. Creating Forms in Exchange

A brief, informative guide to how to create forms is provided on-line by Gordon Kent, author of Internet Publishing with Acrobat. This site provides instructions and links to: Example PDF forms PDF Forms: The Steps Designing the form Converting the file to a PDF file Adding the PDF form fields for user entry and results Submitting the Form Composing the FDF file Writing the server's CGI script or application Return to PDF Research Companion home page. a production of Performance Graphics ©1998 The Miller De Wulf Corporation