creating an editable pdf template

I've never used Illustrator (CS4) but I assume it is possible to tag a document prior to PDF conversion.

If you can identify a field as text input when it is tagged, the conversion should be fine.

Once the PDF is opened in Acrobat, Click Forms > Add or Edit Fields. Acrobat will attempt to recognize all tagged elements in the document.You may have to make a few form field edits in LiveCycle Designer.

Keep this question open if it does not solve the problem.

Thanks for the response, in the end I left the space i needed clear and created fields in acrobat and it worked fine.

I'm looking for help in a similar situation. I create flyers in QuarkXPress and Adobe InDesign, and then make pdfs for my organization to print them. They would like to be able to make minor updates to the text in Acrobat 9 from time to time, without having to come back to me to do it every time. I have several questions about this:

1. Is the best way for them to do this to use a touch up text tool, or the way that was described above, where I provide them with editable text fields? I would rather avoid the extra step of creating editable text fields, if possible. Also, I want them to be able to use the same fonts I am using.

2. Speaking of fonts, do they need to have my same fonts loaded on their system to be able to make the changes, or is it enough that I'm embedding the font in the pdf when I create it?

3. If I am on a Mac and they are on a PC, will this present font problems?

Thanks for any advice or direction you can point me in.

Make sure the font is not copyrighted or requires a license. Yes, provide them with a copy of the font because text editing can only be done with unembedded or installed system fonts.

I'd advise the editors to read the Help topic within Acrobat on the Touchup Text Tool before making edits.

Read this article as it relates to the dangers of using this tool for the purpose you've described.

http://www.box.net/shared/static/h9g8v9cj6p.pdf

The above link will expire in 30 days.

Thanks for the reply, it was helpful and the article was helpful.

I'm still wondering about the cross platform issue. If I'm on a Mac, and they are on PCs and they buy the PC version of my Mac font, will this work, or no?

The Touch Up Text tool is a nightmare for anything more than a letter or two. Instead of a form field, why not just use a Text Box Comment? It's far easier to format text that way, in my opinion. You can format the comment box to have no fill and no stroke, and you can format the internal text to use any font/format you have available to you.

Regina the best solution for x-platform fonts is for you both to use Open Type fonts in the areas that you'll be sharing the editing. Open Type fonts are exactly the same x-platform. TrueType and Type 1 fonts sometimes have different internal filenames and sometimes different kerning values between the 2 platforms.

Hi AnneMarie, thanks for your reply. I'm finding the same thing with Touch-up tool--quite unpredictable and hard to use. I will definitely choose Open Type fonts, thanks, I didn't realize they worked well cross platform. I did try the Text Box comment, but on the Mac, it's not possible to change the font (it is possible on the PC, though). I'm concluding perhaps Acrobat Pro is not the program of choice for non-graphics folks to edit my documents in an easy-to-use way.

Yes it's a nightmare, but then PDF was never intended to be an editable file format. We've extended Acrobat over the years to allow for "touch-ups", but that's all they hope to be - correcting an isolated typo here and there to save re-distilling a document.

Touch-up does actually work predictably, it just doesn't work like a word processor. Corrections within a word are fine, but delete past the start and it moves to the next place in the stream, which is not necessarily on the next line up - and of course you can't re-insert that random change in position. It can reflow to an extent, but only if you're careful about the tool settings. Certainly I'd never advise it be used by unskilled end users as the means to edit a template-style document, unless you plan to run a 24/7 phone helpdesk.

Although it takes a bit of effort to set up, the normal way to allow people to "edit" PDFs on demand is to generate them dynamically on a webserver. Your "input" PDF would contain just the static background elements, and via a web page the user would input their text fields on a simple HTML form. Server-side PDF tools are available (in PHP, etc.) that will take your template, add on their text, and push the resulting PDF back to the user as a download. The advantages are the user needs no software or skill, the PDF they get can be non-editable and secured, and the fonts are only stored on the webserver so there's no licensing issue.

Thanks for your reply, I'm getting a better picture of how things work. Yes, the point was to have less demand on me, not more (a 24/7 help desk, egads!).

The webserver solution you suggest sounds like a good idea. I'm afraid I haven't the first clue how to go about setting that up, but I'll ask the people I work with if their web designer knows how to do that.

The original post was related to using a template to edit content which is not related to the touchup text tool.
If you're interested in using a template, I have an example written for Acrobat 8 and below which you can examine and adjust the JavaScript as necessary.

Thanks for your reply. However, I'm not familiar with JavaScript so I wouldn't begin to know what to do with it.

You can change the font quite easily. Open the Properties toolbar first (Command-E). Then select the text you want to change in the Text Box comment and use the typeface dropdown menu in Properties to choose a font (and you can change size, alignment, and color). You can mix/match font sizes and styles within the same Text Box just like a text box in XPress or InDesign.

AM