Planning your PDF form depends on what information will be exchanged through the form. Different types of information correspond to various form elements, which are designed especially for that kind of data.
In Windows, the choice between editing a form in Acrobat or editing it in Adobe LiveCycle Designer is also influenced by the content of the form.
Your answers to the following questions may guide your decision about what elements to include in the form layout and which application to use to create and edit the form.
This most basic planning step depends on your goals in sending out the form.
Besides providing the questions and labels for information the person filling in the form will provide, many forms identify the person or organization that originated the form and provide contact information, instructions, graphics, logos, and so forth.
If you want to edit the text or change the layout of an existing PDF form, you must edit the original source document in its native authoring application or, in Windows only, you can edit the file in LiveCycle Designer.
Barcoding fields are supported by both Acrobat and LiveCycle Designer, with more options available in LiveCycle Designer.
PDF forms can collect many kinds of data: typed text, numbers, a single selection from limited choices, multiple selections from limited choices, and so on. The data you want to collect affects the types of form fields you use.
For example, List Box fields force users to choose just one answer from a list of limited possibilities, but you could configure radio buttons that would do the same thing. Which you use might depend on the amount of space available, usability factors, and design aesthetics.
This issue is an offshoot of your primary goal for the form. It’s helpful to identify what data fields are essential and should be set up as required, as compared to data that is only supplementary for other purposes. For example, if the form is a purchase order, you cannot send the merchandise to the purchaser without a shipping address. However, if the user left a “Comments” field blank, you could still carry out the primary function of the form, so you wouldn’t want to mark it as a required field.
Many types of form fields can be configured to accept only certain types of information. For example, text boxes can be set up to accept only numbers, only letters, or a combination of the two. You can restrict input to specific sequences, such as those for dates, telephone numbers, or Social Security numbers. You can create fields that automatically display calculations from other fields. You can set text fields properties so that the field area scrolls, allowing users to write lengthy responses without taking up a large area of the form.