Converting a Word form to PDF.

Question

I have Acrobat 7.0 installed and a trial version of Acrobat DC.

When I attempt to convert a Word fillable form to PDF using Acrobat 7.0, the result is only a pdf of the text, borders, etc. It is NOT a pdf form.

Using DC, the program shuts down as soon as I try to load the Word file.

With both Adobe programs and the Adobe PDF maker embedded in Office 2007, I tried each file type viz. .docx and the older .doc versions of Word.

After disabling the macros in Word, there was no difference in the pdf conversion.

I attempted to convert with Word Form protection "on" and "off"; again Acrobat failed.

What am I doing wrong?

I was able to create excellent, workable forms using Acrobat 6.0 when I was running Windows XP.

Now I only have PCs running Windows 7 after trying W10 for a few months.

maxwyss · Answer

You are not doing anything wrong. It is simple fact that the PDFMakers do not even attempt to convert the form elements to PDF.

One thing you can try (note that I have not done that, so, it is an educated guess), is to get OpenOffice or LibreOffice, and see how far the Word form opens in that application. From there, you can export as PDF, and the fields with their properties should come through.

The main suggestion, however, is to accept that you won't get the forms parts through, and take it as a chance to improve the form (I was even tempted to say, to "do the form right"…).

Hope this can help.

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