Creating Forms and Collecting Data Using Adobe Acrobat Pro

A hurdle in using an Adobe Acrobat form to collect data is that end-users who only have Adobe Reader generally have no option but to print out the form after it's filled out, and mail it back.  One solution: you can create an Email/Print option so that the results can be either emailed back or printed, with the click of a button.  The emailed data can be easily collected and pulled into a spreadsheet using Adobe Acrobat Pro. 

You first create the form in Adobe Acrobat Pro using the Adobe Designer, a program that comes bundled with Acrobat Pro 7. 

Here is the form I created using Designer: Sample Form

You save the data files that are emailed back to you, then collect the data using Adobe Acrobat Pro.

Here is the spreadsheet generated by Acrobat (6 emailed responses): Sample Spreadsheet.

If you have an earlier version of Adobe Acrobat Pro, you can bring in form elements using the Tools menu, choosing Advanced Editing, then the form object.  Right-click the object and choose Properties to manipulate the properties of the object.

Creating the Form

You can either import the form from another application, such as Word, or build it from scratch in Designer.  If you a working with a large amount of text, importing form another application is your best option.

Open Acrobat.  From the Advanced menu, choose Forms, then Create New Form.  Designer will open, and the New Form Assistant will take you through the process of setting up the form (you can choose Don't Use Assistant to go directly to Designer). 

Step 1: You can bring in an existing Word or PDF document, or a blank form to build it from scratch.

Step 2: Choose your page size and orientation.

 

 

 

 

Step 3: Return method.  You can choose Submit only, Submit/Print, which gives the end-user an option of either method, Fill then Print, or Print only.  We'll go with the Submit/Print option.  The Print and Email buttons will be created automatically.  

 

 

 

 

 

Step 4: Give your email address.

 

Designer will open the imported document, or a blank one, if that's what you chose in step 1.  This example was written in Word, then imported to Designer.

In the upper right hand corner is the Library, where all your form objects are.  You can create text-only boxes, text fields, radio (single-choice) buttons, checkbox (multi-choice) buttons, drop-down menus, password fields, and submit buttons from here.  Drag the object from the Library to the document, position it by clicking and dragging, size it using the sizing boxes, and add answer choice text by typing it in the appropriate box.  You can preview the document at any time by clicking the PDF Preview tab above the document.

You set the properties for each form object in the Object palette, just below the Library.  You can name your form objects, set values, limit the length of answers, and set error messages by clicking on the object, and then setting values in the Object palette.  It is a good idea to rename the name Designer gives to your form objects with a descriptive name; the third question on the sample form could be renamed "q3" or "pets," instead of the default "radiobuttonlist".  Radio buttons that are answers to the same question should have the same name (e.g.- the answers to question 3 are all named "q3") but different values (dolphin=1, flounder=2, etc.).  If radio buttons are grouped together, Designer does a pretty good job of giving them all the same name and different values consisting of consecutive numbers (1, 2, 3, etc.).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Multiple choice checkboxes should all have different names (e.g. - the answers to q4 are named q4-1, q4-2, and so on).  By default, if the checkbox is checked (or "On"), the value is 1.  If the checkbox is unchecked (or "Off"), the value is 0.  These values can be changed using the On Value and Off Value boxes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can add a subject line, another email address, or change the appearance of your Submit By Email button by selecting the button and working with the Object palette.

 

 

 

 

 

When you are done with your form, save it as a .pdf and post it on the web.

Collecting the data

When the emails sent from the on-line PDF form are sent, the data is in an .xml attachment called formname.xml (in this example "designer_form_3.xml").  All the attachments, then, will have the same name, so when you are saving these attachments, it is important to rename them so you are not overwriting the same file over and over again.  In this example, I simply added a number to the end of each attachment as they were received, so that the first one was renamed "designer_form_31.xml", the second one "designer_form_32.xml", and so on.

When you are ready to collect all your attachments together into one file, open Acrobat, go to the File menu, choose Form Data, then Create Spreadsheet From Data Files.  The following dialogue box will appear.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Click the Add Files button and browse to the folder where you saved your attachments.  You can select multiple attachments by clicking the first file, holding down the Shift button, and clicking the last file.  The selected files will show up in the Files To Export Data From box.  When all your files have been selected, click the Export button.  Your file will be saved as a .csv, or Comma Separated Values file.  Give your file a name, and save it.

When the export is done, you'll see an Export Progress box.  Click View File, and it will come up in MS Excel, with the question names as column headings, and each set of data represented by a row.

 

 

 

 

After you've compiled all the email addresses, you can then manually enter the data from forms that were printed and mailed/faxed back to you.

If you need any assistance in this process, please give me a call at 719-549-2045, or email me at Jeffrey.Wood@Colostate.Edu.