MS Word Form and LiveCycle

[jayrexall]

One of my clients has this document they have created in Microsoft Word. The document is 5 pages long and they would like to make it an electronic document with input fields. I'm thinking LiveCycle may be ideal.

My concern is that my clients document may change month to month and I'm worried about the maintenance of the form. I was thinking it would be easier if I created the form in MS Word and then converted it within LiveCycle. However, I did a simple test with a few Word form fields and it appears that it doesn't do the greatest job detecting the fields.

Also, if I was to design the entire form in LiveCycle, I'm worried that it will be hard to manage. For example, if I had 2 sections on my form and then wanted to add a new section between them, I would physically have to move all the components. Right? It wouldn't automatically shift. Unless I am doing something wrong?

Can someone give me some pointers / assistance? What is the best way to do this.

Thanks

[radzmar]

One benefits of Designer is that you can design dynamic forms, where objects can grow or shrink, become visible or hidden etc.

To start with this, you should check out this TechTalk from AUC.

It explains the basics of creating dynamic forms.

http://asib.na4.acrobat.com/p37533907/

[Diego-Silva]

Hey man, if your document changes from time to time you could use form fragments instead. Then you'll be able to modify certain sections without changing the rest.

About you 2nd concern, if you build correctly and by this I mean using subforms in a flowed Content, then you can easily manage all of this. I am building right now a 15+ pages form and if I need to add a new section between page 4 and 5 I just create a new subform, put my stuff there and drag and drop to the place I want.

So take this 2 key words: Form Fragments, working with subforms and flowed content.

Hope this help.

Diego