Creating Interactive Forms

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Chapter 5

• Creating Interactive Forms

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Exploring Strategies for Designing an Interactive
Form

• An interactive form created in InDesign is
  exported as an interactive Adobe PDF file.
• The benefit of exporting the InDesign file as a
  PDF is that you get one file, self-contained.

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Exploring Strategies for Designing an Interactive
Form
Viewing the design of the Yearbook Order Form
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Exploring Strategies for Designing an Interactive
Form

• All of the fonts, colors, and placed graphics
  exist in the PDF.
• Send the PDF to anybody, and they can open it as
  is using Adobe Reader or Adobe Acrobat.

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Exploring Strategies for Designing an Interactive
Form

• When the InDesign file has been designed with
  interactive fields like text fields or check
  boxes or pull-down lists those frames and their
  functionality are included in the interactive PDF.

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Exploring Strategies for Designing an Interactive
Form
Font Size menu
Options for Text Field button
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Exploring Strategies for Designing an Interactive
Form

• There are six options for creating interactive
  buttons in a form
• Check Box
• Combo Box
• List Box

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Exploring Strategies for Designing an Interactive
Form

• There are six options for creating interactive
  buttons in a form
• Radio Button
• Signature Field
• Text Field

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Exploring Strategies for Designing an Interactive
Form
Type menu
The Buttons and Forms panel
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Exploring Strategies for Designing an Interactive
Form

• Text Field is the most commonly used type and
  plays the most straightforward role.
• Text field is where you can type text into a
  form.

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Exploring Strategies for Designing an Interactive
Form

• One of the key layout challenges in designing an
  interactive form is specifying text so that it
  will appear within a text field in a way that is
  visually pleasing.

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Exploring Strategies for Designing an Interactive
Form

• No matter what typeface, type style, or
  horizontal alignment you choose in InDesign, the
  typeface and horizontal alignment of the text
  entered in the exported document is determined by
  end-users default browser setting.

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Exploring Strategies for Designing an Interactive
Form
Text entered into the exported PDF
Appearance of text using default browser settings
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Creating Text Input Fields

• Because in InDesign, the fields in an interactive
  document are buttons.
• To make a text frame into a text field for a
  form, you must first convert the frame to a
  button.

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Creating Text Input Fields

• Text field buttons are used to collect data.
• All the data from a given form can be imported
  into a database, and databases use the names of
  fields to organize and sort data from those
  fields.

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Creating Text Input Fields

• Text field options are Printable, Required,
  Password, Read Only, Multiline, and Scrollable.

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Creating Text Input Fields
Six options for text fields
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Creating a Pull-Down List

• When you are designing a form, pull-down lists
  are a smart strategic choice because they ensure
  consistency because theyre the one that creates
  a finite list that the user can choose from.

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Creating a Pull-Down List
AZ chosen in a pull-down list, with 49 other
choices not showing
Pull-down list
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Creating a Pull-Down List

• They also offer a very practical solution for
  containingand hidinglarge amounts of data.

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Creating Check Boxes and Radio Buttons

• When used in a form, check boxes are affirmative.
• By checking a box, the user is making a choice,
  choosing to opt in on an offer or identify with
  an item.

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Creating Check Boxes and Radio Buttons
Frame converted to a check box
Button value
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Creating Check Boxes and Radio Buttons

• The bottom of the Buttons and Forms panel, the
  Button Value reads Yes by default.
• When a user enters information into a form, the
  form is essentially collecting data, and that
  data is stored as part of the saved document.

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Creating Check Boxes and Radio Buttons

• In the case of check boxes, the button value of
  Yes means that if the box is checked, the data
  for the form will list Yes beside the button name.

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Creating Check Boxes and Radio Buttons

• When you format radio buttons, you must select
  all the buttons in the group and convert them
  into a button to make them function as a group.

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Creating Check Boxes and Radio Buttons
Five radio buttons one selected
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Creating Check Boxes and Radio Buttons

• When they function as a group, only one button in
  the group can be selected or activated.

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Creating Check Boxes and Radio Buttons

• When you convert a frame to a button, you can
  choose the Hide Until Triggered option.
• With this option, a button will not be visible in
  the exported form until it is triggered by
  another button.

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Creating Check Boxes and Radio Buttons
Hide Until Triggered check box
Hide Until Triggered option
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Creating Check Boxes and Radio Buttons

• Check boxes and radio buttons are often used as
  triggers for hidden buttons.

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Creating a Submit Form Button

• When you create an interactive form, two basic
  strategies you have to consider are
• How the form will be delivered to the user?
• How the user will return it to you?

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Creating a Submit Form Button

• You have two main options for delivering the form
  to your intended user website or email.
• If they choose the website option, you can post
  the interactive PDF to a website where your users
  can go to fill out the form.

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Creating a Submit Form Button

• Or you can send an email to your user list with
  the interactive PDF as an attachment that users
  can open.

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Creating a Submit Form Button
Formatting the buttons to submit the form to an
email address
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Creating a Submit Form Button

• Once the form is delivered, the next step is
  getting the filled-out form returned to you.
  Three options are
• print
• Website
• email

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Creating a Submit Form Button
Print Form action ascribed to a button on the
Button and Forms panel
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Creating a Submit Form Button

• For all three options, you can use a button to
  trigger the action.

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Entering Information into the Interactive Form

• Once youre done designing and formatting a
  document, export the file as Adobe PDF
  (Interactive).

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Entering Information into the Interactive Form
Exporting to Interactive PDF dialog box
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Entering Information into the Interactive Form

• The Forms and Media option must be set to Include
  All so that the form fields youve created will
  function as such.
• The View After Exporting option will open the PDF
  on their computer once it is generated.

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Entering Information into the Interactive Form

• The software that will open the PDF is an
  important consideration, especially if you are
  sending the PDF to many different recipients who
  will be using different types of computers with
  different configurations.

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Entering Information into the Interactive Form

• Most computer users have Adobe Reader installed
  on their computers and since the PDF file is
  itself an Adobe product, you can expect that the
  file they export will open and function exactly
  as you intend it to in Adobe Reader.

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Entering Information into the Interactive Form
The exported form in Adobe Acrobat X Pro
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Entering Information into the Interactive Form

• If the user does not have Reader or Acrobat
  installed, the PDF will open in a more generic
  application
• Preview (Mac)
• Windows Media Player (PC)

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Entering Information into the Interactive Form

• In most cases, the form will function as you
  intend, but you can also expect some
  discrepancies.