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New Project - Which Acrobat?

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2008-11-04 11:54:58
cb1
Registered: Nov 4 2008
Posts: 3

Hey all,

First time post-er from the St. Louis area....

I was approached to recreate some forms for an insurance company. They are a potential new client and I am excited about future prospects.

I don't want to drop the ball - so I am leaning on the expertise of this forum to give product advice.

Honestly - I am confused as to what version of Acrobat does what.

1 - The client wants me to recreate existing forms and make them PDFs.

2 - They want the fields to be filled in from a keyboard.

3 - The forms also have some simple calculations that need to be done after the fields are filled in (adding field values to give a total).

4 - Ideally - they would like the user filling out the form to #1: Be able to save the filled out electronic PDF and #2: (ideally) Be able to email it back.

5 - Again - a luxury that is not necessary - electronic signatures...

I currently use CS3 (Mac) and was planning on building the forms in InDesign.

But - are the above functions LiveCycle functions? Or can all this be accomplished with CS3? Or do I need to upgrade to CS9?

I'm a small 1 person shop and any costs I can avoid - I try too - BUT if I have to make a prudent move based on one of the above conditions I will.

Sometimes deciphering the Adobe web site can be a bit daunting. It looks like Acrobat Pro could do some of these functions. just don't understand about the save-ability of filled out forms.

Thank you for taking the time to answer - I really appreciate it.
cB

My Product Information:
Acrobat Pro 8.1.2, Macintosh
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2008-11-04 12:10:47
#1
George_Johnson
Expert
Registered: Jul 6 2008
Posts: 1876
If you currently have Acrobat Pro 8, you have all you need to create the forms, including adding digital signature fields.

LiveCycle Designer is not necessary for this and is not available for the Mac.

For forms that need to be saved with Reader and returned, you will have to Reader-enable the forms, which is possible with Acrobat Pro 8, but there are licensing restrictions that apply. In short, if you will be deploying a form to more than 500 recipients, then you are only allowed to extract information from no more than 500 returned forms (including hardcopies). To avoid this limitation, you can use Adobe's LiveCycle Reader Extensions product to create an enabled document without limitations, but this can be expensive. An alternative is to use an authorized service such as the one FormRouter (http://www.formrouter.com) offers, which will enable individual documents for a reasonable fee.

If you will be deploying an extended document to fewer than 500 recipients, there is no limit to the number of times you may extract information from a particular form.

George
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2008-11-06 12:46:52
#2
cb1
Registered: Nov 4 2008
Posts: 3
George - thanks for your reply...

I understand the limit on extraction of data - very cool, thank you.

Other questions:
1 - The company can send out as many forms as they wish that their agents can save and send back - they just can't gather data from more than the first 500 correct?

2 - Meaning - they can print them out from form 501 to form 1 billion. They just can't electronically grab the data for use somewhere else?

Am I understanding it correctly? It would make no sense to really do that - but I do not know if the insurance company would shell out 50K either.

These are repetitive insurance forms which would probably quickly go over 500 for any one form.
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2008-11-06 13:09:58
#3
George_Johnson
Expert
Registered: Jul 6 2008
Posts: 1876
1. It could be any 500, not just the first 500. But yes, that's the idea.

2. No! The license agreement doesn't say anything about electronic extraction of information, just extraction, which means extraction in any form. If someone receives a hardcopy that was returned, looks at the form, and transcribes any information from the form, that counts as one of 500. If you use any of the data from a returned form, in any way (apart from reviewing and then discarding), it counts as one of 500.

If you use the service offered by FormRouter, the cost may be considerably less than 50K, but you have not said how many forms are involved. Also note that 50K may not be the price Adobe would charge you for LiveCycle Reader Extensions. They negotiate the fee with you based on your intended use.

You'll need to perform a cost/benefit analysis to see if it makes sense to proceed.

George
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2008-11-06 13:19:22
#4
George_Johnson
Expert
Registered: Jul 6 2008
Posts: 1876
Also, in reviewing your requirements, it seems there is room to have forms that cannot be saved with Reader. If all that is needed is for the end user to print a filled-in form, there is no limit. But this would preclude the use of digital signatures.

The other option is to provide Acrobat software to the agents. They would then be able to save filled-in forms without restriction and the company could use the returned forms without restriction. Acrobat Standard is sufficient, and there may be a volume discount.

George
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