fillable form

Yes, the easiest way to do this is to create a form with LiveCycle designer (which comes with Acrobat 8 Pro).

1. Place an "Email Submit" button on the form.
2. Then, from the Acrobat menus select "Forms > Distribute Form". This places your form into Acrobat's form management system, which helps you manage data that's emailed back from the users.You'll need to read more about managing forms in the Acrobat Help and practice with it a bit.

My "project," now in MS Word (.doc) is a self-help book with a workbook component. Navigation is by hyperlinks, not page-turning. It includes pics and text boxes.

Can it work as a PDF?

Specifically,

1. Can I use the "fillable form" feature for the workbook (question/answer diary-type entries for user only, not to be sent back)so that the original workbook text is fixed but user input can be of variable length, with additions over time?

2. If so, can the "fillable form" component be integrated into the entire book (hyperlinked access from part of the book to the corresponding workbook) and return (hyperlinked back from workbook to that part of the book)?

3. What Acrobat program would I need to create this? 10X? Would user need the same program to access the book's full operation, or would the Reader suffice?

ljcb

This question should have been posted to a new thread.

But, the answer is Sort of. An AcroForm PDF is perfect for creating an e-book with interactive workbook features. An AcroForm is just a regular PDF that uses all the native PDF features, including links and form fields. You could create such a PDF with just about any version of Acrobat Professional. You don't need to buy the latest.

However, the page content (the static text and graphics) on an AcroForm is fixed. Just like a piece of pager it doesn't change. The text input fields on an AcroForm have a fixed length that you, the designer, setup when you create the form/document, also just like a paper form. You can't easily create an "auto-expandable" document.

LiveCycle PDF forms on the other hand, are built to be dynamically expandable. But unfortunately they are not very good at the book format. In order to work efficiently, a LiveCycle Form has to be short.

Take a look at this blog post:
http://acrobatusers.com/blogs/thomp/so-what-difference-between-acroforms-and-xfa