Is Acrobat a good substitute for InfoPath?

[Kierok]

With the discontinuation of Microsoft InfoPath. I am wondering what format to turn to next.

Is Acrobat an appropriate alternative?

The conversion that I am looking at now turns an InfoPath file into a 12-page pdf document. I will need to distribute and collect results from the user's answers in the fillable forms and put them onto a spreadsheet. I am able to distribute via e-mail and collect results that I have converted to an excel sheet.

The setbacks I have had is that every single field is sent to the spreadsheet so it looks a bit of a mess(both questions and answers). I have started adding "*" at the beginning of the names of the unnecessary fields so I can sort and delete them in the spreadsheet easily. It is also a pain to have to name every single fillable form as there are over 500 of them (which also makes the excel sheet VERY wide).

Too long; didn't read - I need to basically make a big survey and automatically collect results into a spreadsheet. Is Acrobat appopriate to do the job?

Thanks in advance,

Kier

[gkaiseril]

IF you need the all the features of InfoPath you probably want to look at Adobe's LiveCycle server products. They are designed for large organization form creation, distribution, and processing the returned data. There are may services that can be purchased and installed as needed but it will not be cheap. Acrobat can prepare forms and do rather limited form return processing unless you use a web server for processing submitted forms with lots of custom programming.

[Kierok]

If it is created on LiveCycle, would the user(the one filling out the survey) need to have the program as well?

[try67 · Accepted solution]

No. They can do it using the free Adobe Reader.