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L
leannee26890111
Participant
July 17, 2023
Question

Indesign Forms to promt to open in acrobat in mobiles

  • July 17, 2023
  • 2 replies
  • 247 views

Hi,

 

I've created a load of fillable forms for a customer but the submit button isn't working. I'm gusessing it's becuase her customers are opening it in a pdf reader that isn't adobe on ther phones. One of her suppliers sent her a fillable form and when she opened it, it gave her a code or something so that it opened in acrobat.

How can I do this through either indesign or acrobat so that the form will open in reader? Thank you : )

This topic has been closed for replies.

2 replies

BobLevine
Community Expert
BobLevineCommunity Expert
Community Expert
July 17, 2023

If you need a form to open in all devices, create an HTML based form for your website or even a Google Form. PDF forms on mobile are an absolute abomination since a)most PDF readers are garbage, and b)PDFs are not responsive.

L
leannee26890111Author
Participant
July 18, 2023

It's not for my website and i'm a graphic desiger, I dabbled in html many moons ago and there's only so much I can dip my fingers in. The forms are really basic, literally just text feild boxes that need filling in. It's just the submit button I need working and been as she's had a supplier send her a pdf and the first thing it did was send her something to make sure it opened in acrobat is really annoying that I can't find it any where online how to do it. I would really rather find out how to do this than re-set about 10 forms and learn html, some forms are really long, with tables, design elements, images and contract info. It would take weeks : /

James Gifford—NitroPress
James Gifford—NitroPress
Legend
July 17, 2023

I don't know if there are any 'higher level' ways to call specific apps; apps that ask a platform to open a document are highly bound to the user or device's default choices. It can be done (I have desktop apps that will open Bing even [seemingly] if I remove it from the system.) But without some pretty sturdy coding, bypassing API/system calls, I don't thinik you can force users to open docs on Acrobat.

 

For one thing, they probably don't have it installed. Even many sophisticated users are unaware that PDF viewers vary right down to basic abilities and ass/u/me that the browser plugin or platform alternative or Foxit or whatever work just as well, if not "better" for some reason. (Reason, all to often, being "it's not Adobe's POS." And for either end of that spectrum, going out of their way to install it is unlikely.

 

For both PDF and EPUB, you either have to design for the majority of vanilla readers, accepting that there are still some readers that won't present the doc the way you want, or design to such a low level it works on every reader out there, or design for proper function on Acrobat and try to inform the user that's the case.

 

Choose wisely. 😕😕

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