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gregoryr11168552
Participant
September 8, 2018
Question

Get Acrobat Forms to recognize fields, Sign area and check boxes etc from plain document

  • September 8, 2018
  • 2 replies
  • 949 views

Hi,

On trial of Acrobat Pro DC so don't have a lot of time to search & test for days so sorry if this info is out there.

I want to email clients using Send For Signature and would like acrobat to recognize the fields on my document and not have to manually add after.

Basically I create a mail shot from an MS Access database with different details on each, names etc

This is saved as a .PDF etc but of course does not have fields or data.

Using Send for signature it creates the document & tried to recognize pre-existing fields.

If I have an solid underline it adds a field but I would like it to find a specific SIGN box or line

I would also like to to find check boxes.

e.g.

Would you like to receive promotions

Yes [  ]

No [  ]

Signed:

--------------------

I actually tried the [  ]  but it does not find these.

I can't see anywhere that advises if this is possible or what it is looking for but it does say it tries to find existing fields.

Perhaps ( ), bit fiddly with trial & error.

Also, very early days but wondering if I can streamline the whole process, can I open Acrobat Send for signature with recipient auto added and perhaps even the document name. Ideally MS Access opens Acrobat & from the database fields select johndoe@aol.com document name JDoeSign, file JDoeSign.PDF

Thanks I/A

This topic has been closed for replies.

2 replies

Thom Parker
Community Expert
Thom ParkerCommunity Expert
Community Expert
September 8, 2018

For your last question. Acrobat comes with a number of preset document/form workflows, such as the send for signature. There are few options provided for customizing these processes. If you want to do something more complicated, then Adobe sells services for this and you should talk to them about it and hire a developer to build a custom solution.

Thom Parker - Software Developer at PDFScriptingUse the Acrobat JavaScript Reference early and often
    Thom Parker
    Community Expert
    Thom ParkerCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    September 8, 2018

    When you click on the "Send for Signature" button you are get a popup with a "Prepare Form" option? and you are pressing this button? It is this "Prepare Form" option that is trying to recognize areas of the document that require fields. This is a very difficult task and Acrobat only gets it right in the most obvious cases. However, the "Prepare Form" mode also provides options for manually adding fields from the toolbar at the top of the document. So just add the fields you need.

    Thom Parker - Software Developer at PDFScriptingUse the Acrobat JavaScript Reference early and often
      G
      gregoryr11168552Author
      Participant
      September 8, 2018

      Hi,

      Thanks for your reply, I can see I can manually add which I can see would work well but I am planning on sending 5 to 10 of these a day with minimal time to do it so was hoping it would work. Its the same document with different names, ID etc.

      I hoped I could design the document so that it had all the right triggers for Acrobat to recognize where a signature would be and even check box but guess not likely.

      Think I might have to look at entirely different options. Currently I print & scan and some clever OCR but would have preferred the electronic option but actually will be slower than my current system & I won't have to subscribe.

      Thanks anyway.

      Thom Parker
      Community Expert
      Thom ParkerCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      September 8, 2018

      Are all of these documents similar? do they have the same fields? If the fields are always the same in the same location you can create a PDF with all the fields on it and do a page replacement or page template spawn to add the fields. All of this could be automated with a script. Even if the fields are in different places it may be possible to write a script that locates the correct placement of the fields.

      Thom Parker - Software Developer at PDFScriptingUse the Acrobat JavaScript Reference early and often
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