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Converting a Word document with form fields to become a form fillable PDF file with email

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Former Community Member
We are trying to convert a number of word(97,and 2000) documents but it never works correctly. The converted PDF file is missing fields and the fields it does convert is one character long. The idea was to have LiveCycle just convert it without anyone having the need to re-design it. They would only need to add a submit button and an email address to the PDF form. Is there something we are missing?
10 Replies

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Level 2
Hi there, from what I understand, and the way I create these fillable forms is that I open the PDF in LiveCycle Designer 8.0 and put the fields in myself. I also attach the submit button and format the button to an email address. If you like, you can email at kimsnyder@sympatico.ca or IM at MSN and I help you further. I recently created 15 documents for a company here in toronto, and I had to place the fields myself. It doesn't take long for someone who knows what they are doing.

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Former Community Member
Hi and thanks for the response.



We have over 1000 word documents with a lot of form fields and only one person with LiveCycle and that person doesn't have the time to manually update or learn how to use LiveCycle. I thought we could use LiveCycle since Adobe seems to suggest it could do it without having to know much about it.

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Level 2
I can help you, I have my own consulting business where I create these forms on a regular basis. Adobe tries to make it easier than what it is. Like I said, I have IM through MSN, AIM, Yahoo. Kimmerdog is my ID for AIM and Yahoo. MSN is my email address. Send me an email and we can talk further. You have to put in the form fields in LiveCycle Designer, unless I missed something :)

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Former Community Member
Sorry, but we are not looking for a consultant. Any mention of money and the bosses look ready to eat you thus saving money.



LiveCycle Designer has an import function we were trying to use. Guess we just will be using plain old word documents then.



Thank for your time anyway.

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Level 2
I didn't mean I wanted to be paid for helping you, I meant use me IM and I can help you get through putting the form fields in. Yes, if you want your forms to be interactive, it will cost in the beginning (time to convert), but in the long road, it will save you a lot of time and money.



Sorry.

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Former Community Member
Hi,



I just purchase Acrobat 8.0 pro LiveCyle Designer. I have one little problem with converting my .doc form to an interactive PDF form. Perhaps someone can help me.



Heres the problem:



1. Im sending you (my hypothetical client) via a pdf attachment, a form to complete and e-mail it back to me. So far so good.

2. You complete it and click on submit by email. So far so good.

3. But you will notice that the file extension changed from .pdf to .xml. Not good.

4. If instead of clicking the submit by email button, you go to file, attach to email, it stays in a pdf format. I need it to stay in a pdf format so that the form design stays intact. Can anyone walk me through how to fix this? Thanks.



Kind Regards,



George

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Level 2
When you create your fillable PDF, make sure to save it as a Static Form and not Dynamic.

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Former Community Member
I did that. That didn't solve the problem. Can I sent you the 1 page file to look at?



George

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Level 2
Yes you can. kimsnyder@sympatico.ca

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Former Community Member
For the problem of submitting by email and still submitting a PDF file:

The stock "Submit by Email" button submits via XML. I think you can do one of two things to get it to work:

1) Use a regular "Button" instead of an "Email Submit Button". Set it's type to "Submit" in the Field tab; then on the Submit tab, use something like "mailto:name@company" for your email address in the Submit To URL box, and set the Submit As type to PDF.



2) Change the XML for your Email Submit button (in the XML Source view): You'll find something like,

<event name="event__click" activity="click">

<submit format="xml" textEncoding="UTF-8" target="mailto:name@company"/>

</event>



Change it to:

<event activity="click" name="event__click">

<submit format="pdf" textEncoding="UTF-16" xdpContent="pdf datasets xfdf" target="mailto:name@company"/>

</event>



I don't know if you need to change just the "Submit format" in the XML, or also add the xdpContent tag.



Hope that works,

Mike