Known Participant

Question

Share/distribute a fillable interactive PDF - Issues on filling interactive PDF

Forum|Forum|4 years ago
January 17, 2022
4 replies
1693 views

I love the ability to create a fully customized interactive form with InDesign. However, it doesn't matter how strong this feature is if nobody can properly fill my form. I've tried many times to send my interactive PDF via email (as a file attachment) to clients, but there is always an issue: some don't have their Acrobat up to date and simply can't fill the file, others will use Preview which won't display some of the interactive fields properly, etc.

I wonder if there is a possibility to share/host my interactive fillable PDF online somehow, which would allow me to send a link to my clients to access and fill the PDF directly on their browser? If not, can I request this feature somewhere? (Yes, I'm desperate...)

I've tried the Publish Online feature but the interactivity disappears with it.

Thank you for any tips you may have!

This topic has been closed for replies.

V

Vikas28472407u4x1

Participant

Get good smtp it will solve half of your issue. i suggest you to have a look at codermails smtp server for best solution for attacted pdf.

BobLevine

Community Expert

Contrary to the others here, I will repeat, again, my usual advice. Forget InDesign; Forget Acrobat.

If you need a form filled out in a browser, just create an HTML form and do it the right way. If it's a Wordpress site there are scores of form plugins with far more power than anything you can do with InDesign.

J

Jeffrey_Smith

Community Expert

Bob, curious what wordpress form plugins are you using successfully? I know this is off topic, but there are issues with wp forms that I have encountered, everything from unwanted spam, to email notification not working.

BobLevine

Community Expert

I’ve tried most of the biggies. Gravity is pretty good as is formidable but I hate Contact Form 7. Lately, I’ve taken to using the native form element in Avada which is the only theme I’ve used for the last 5 years.

There’s not a ton you can do to completely eliminate spam but with captcha and a honeypot field I’m not seeing anywhere near what I used to get including my own site which I just re-designed with that theme. Emails not sending could be anything including totally overzealous spam filtering or a hosting issue.

I’ve seen this recommended but I haven’t needed to go this far: How to Configure Your WordPress SMTP Settings (The Easy Way) (wpmailsmtp.com)

Steve Werner

Community Expert

You're pointing out all the limitations of interactive PDF. It only works well on desktop apps with Adobe Reader or Adobe Acrobat. Viewing in a browser or third party app has no consistency and doens't work.

Publish Online doesn't work because it is HTML based, not PDF based.

I suggest looking into in5 from Ajar Productions:

https://ajarproductions.com/pages/products/in5/features.php

Derek Cross

Community Expert

AFAIK know you can't include interactive forms in in5 documents.

They may have changed it, but in 2020 I asked Justin and he replied:

Right now, I recommend embedding a Google Form (or similar):

How to Include a Submittable Form in Your InDesign Document

J

Jeffrey_Smith

Community Expert

jotform.com is an online form solution that you can convert pdf forms to online forms, collect response data, and send hyperlink of form to recipients.

Marine DAuthor

Known Participant

Thank you, but the issue with these third-party apps (like Google Form or PDF Escape) is that I would have to re-do entirely my document and loose all the layout and design that I've done in InDesign, which is what I would like to keep.

I tried uploading my PDF to Jotform, it detected pretty good all my fields, but the entire layout is gone.

BobLevine

Community Expert

And the issue with using what you've already done is that it doesn't work in most PDF readers.

This is not even close to being an InDesign issue. It's a "form over function" issue but suit yourself if you want to fight this battle.

That may sound cold but it's the way it is.

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