Client editable PDF's

Awesomerobot,
Just my natterings but my experience leads me to agree with you.

While Acrobat Professional affords one the ability to do some sophisticated post processing of a PDF any serious editing of content, layout or format needs to be done in the authoring application.

Perhaps a middle ground for you and your client would be to use the comment/review features available with PDF.
An output PDF, for the client, could have commenting enabled so that the client could use Acrobat Reader to make comments.
Better, imo, would be if they had at least Adobe Standard.
The client could add comments... "make this more greenish", "make image bigger/smaller", "fonts look a little big here", etc.
Remember, the core intent of PDF has been to provide a cross plateform "end product" that is true to the authored layout, format, structure, etc.
It has not been/is not a "raw" authoring file such as a Word *.doc file.

A thread that may be of interest to you:
[url]http://www.acrobatusers.com/forums/aucbb/viewtopic.php?id=16670[/url]

Be well...

I edited a PDF in Acrobat 9, adding the character "5" to change a date from 1 to 15. The one change at the beginning of the PDF altered the leading in content below the change, and caused some sections to move up in the content by half a line.

Acrobat provides a text touchup tool but it is very limited and can be difficult to use.

Further other users with Reader can not modify a PDF except if there are form fields and the user with Reader to add annotations/comments or save form field entries need to be provided with a [b]special variation[/b] of the PDF with [b]special rights enabled[/b].

As it has been stated before, the editability of a PDF is limited.

You might have a closer look at what possibilities you have with a form-based template.

Otherwise, you would preferrably look out for a service-based solution, consisting of some kind of Contents Management system and a headless PDF creator.

Hope this can help.

Max.

If you make the area variable fields, then they could edit. However, they will not be able maintian font integrity (will use something like arial), and the type field is limited to what you specifiy.

I have hundreds of users using a search engine type database that pulls up the according form of their choice.

Here is some simple insight.

Acrobat Reader Only (not professional):
Can only edit your forms as you have created them.
Cannot save a document. The document must be printed and cannot be saved.

Acrobat Professional:
Users can save the data they edit if this enabled in your security settings. They can use their forms at a different time.

To create templates i would suggest you create in InDesign, or Illustrator and Microsoft Word. I have created several function serving templates that have the images locked on the templates and the text area's editable in Microsoft Word (even though M.W. is evil! but common.)

And Or

Create in a web format, however this takes some knowledge of website building and much more time.

Jgates00,

Reader can save PDF forms when special extended form rights have been applied to the PDF, which can be done with version 8 Professional or 3D or version 9 Standard, Professional, Extended.