These forums are now Read Only. If you have an Acrobat question, ask questions and get help from one of our experts.

publishing forms as HTML

Forum Index > Forms: Acrobat > publishing forms as HTML
2009-07-20 08:11:31
robr
Registered: Jul 20 2009
Posts: 2

Our creative group is fillable form crazy. They have users go on, download the form, fill it out on their PC, then email them back. It seems to me the whole process would be much more efficient if they could turn these forms into HTML pages where the user just goes to the URL, fills it out online and clicks SUBMIT. The problem is the creative group needs (wants?) complete control over look/feel and they are not developers. Is there something that would take an existing form and generate HTML from it that could then be uploaded to a webserver while keeping the same appearance of the Acrobat form?

Thanks!

My Product Information:
Acrobat Pro 9.1.1
Top
2009-07-20 11:42:03
#1
nixopax
Registered: Feb 6 2009
Posts: 105
The forms in a PDF don't have to be emailed back (I agree, it's a lot more efficient in most cases to submit without having to use email application). It can be submitted to a server as URL encoded data, and not just limited to a mailto:.

In response to your question:
Unfortunately, the current HTML rendering engine that Acrobat uses is rather old and extremely verbose with inline CSS and some odd coding linebreaks. It attempts to retain the look and feel of the PDF, but does not bring form fields over, so it would not be suitable for what you're looking for.

The way you're bringing this up leads me to assume that you're the developer type. What I would suggest is to go over the Acrobat JavaScript Reference, especially the submitForm() function.
www.adobe.com/devnet/acrobat/pdfs/js_api_reference.pdf

If you know how to make an HTML form and accept the submission, then it will pretty easy to learn how to work with PDF forms. They're very versatile, and when done right give you the AJAX feeling.
Top