Chapter 5
Creating Interactive Forms
Exploring Strategies for Designing an
Interactive Form
• An interactive form created in InDesign is
exported as an interactive Adobe PDF file.
• The benefit of exporting the InDesign file as a
PDF is that you get one file, self-contained.
Exploring Strategies for Designing
an Interactive Form
Viewing the design of the Yearbook Order Form
Exploring Strategies for Designing
an Interactive Form
• All of the fonts, colors, and placed graphics
exist in the PDF.
• Send the PDF to anybody, and they can open it
as is using Adobe Reader or Adobe Acrobat.
Exploring Strategies for Designing
an Interactive Form
• When the InDesign file has been designed
with interactive fields – like text fields or check
boxes or pull-down lists – those frames and
their functionality are included in the
interactive PDF.
Exploring Strategies for Designing
an Interactive Form
Font Size menu
Options for Text Field button
Exploring Strategies for Designing
an Interactive Form
• There are six options for creating interactive
buttons in a form:
– Check Box
– Combo Box
– List Box
Exploring Strategies for Designing
an Interactive Form
• There are six options for creating interactive
buttons in a form:
– Radio Button
– Signature Field
– Text Field
Exploring Strategies for Designing
an Interactive Form
Type menu
The Buttons and Forms panel
Exploring Strategies for Designing
an Interactive Form
• Text Field is the most commonly used type
and plays the most straightforward role.
• Text field is where you can type text into a
form.
Exploring Strategies for Designing
an Interactive Form
• One of the key layout challenges in designing
an interactive form is specifying text so that it
will appear within a text field in a way that is
visually pleasing.
Exploring Strategies for Designing
an Interactive Form
• No matter what typeface, type style, or
horizontal alignment you choose in InDesign,
the typeface and horizontal alignment of the
text entered in the exported document is
determined by end-user’s default browser
setting.
Exploring Strategies for Designing
an Interactive Form
Text entered into the exported PDF
Appearance of text using default browser settings
Creating Text Input Fields
• Because in InDesign, the fields in an
interactive document are buttons.
• To make a text frame into a text field for a
form, you must first convert the frame to a
button.
Creating Text Input Fields
• Text field buttons are used to collect data.
• All the data from a given form can be
imported into a database, and databases use
the names of fields to organize and sort data
from those fields.
Creating Text Input Fields
• Text field options are Printable, Required,
Password, Read Only, Multiline, and Scrollable.
Creating Text Input Fields
Six options for text fields
Creating a Pull-Down List
• When you are designing a form, pull-down
lists are a smart strategic choice because they
ensure consistency because they’re the one
that creates a finite list that the user can
choose from.
Creating a Pull-Down List
AZ chosen in a pull-down list, with 49 other choices not showing
Pull-down list
Creating a Pull-Down List
• They also offer a very practical solution for
containing—and hiding—large amounts of
data.
Creating Check Boxes and Radio Buttons
• When used in a form, check boxes are
affirmative.
• By checking a box, the user is making a choice,
choosing to opt in on an offer or identify with
an item.
Creating Check Boxes and Radio Buttons
Frame converted to a check box
Button value
Creating Check Boxes and Radio Buttons
• The bottom of the Buttons and Forms panel,
the Button Value reads Yes by default.
• When a user enters information into a form,
the form is essentially collecting data, and that
data is stored as part of the saved document.
Creating Check Boxes and Radio Buttons
• In the case of check boxes, the button value of
Yes means that if the box is checked, the data
for the form will list Yes beside the button
name.
Creating Check Boxes and Radio Buttons
• When you format radio buttons, you must
select all the buttons in the group and convert
them into a button to make them function as
a group.
Creating Check Boxes and Radio Buttons
Five radio buttons; one selected
Creating Check Boxes and Radio Buttons
• When they function as a group, only one
button in the group can be selected or
activated.
Creating Check Boxes and Radio Buttons
• When you convert a frame to a button, you
can choose the Hide Until Triggered option.
• With this option, a button will not be visible in
the exported form until it is triggered by
another button.
Creating Check Boxes and Radio Buttons
Hide Until Triggered
check box
Hide Until Triggered option
Creating Check Boxes and Radio Buttons
• Check boxes and radio buttons are often used
as triggers for hidden buttons.
Creating a Submit Form Button
• When you create an interactive form, two
basic strategies you have to consider are:
– How the form will be delivered to the user?
– How the user will return it to you?
Creating a Submit Form Button
• You have two main options for delivering the
form to your intended user: website or email.
• If they choose the website option, you can
post the interactive PDF to a website where
your users can go to fill out the form.
Creating a Submit Form Button
• Or you can send an email to your user list with
the interactive PDF as an attachment that
users can open.
Creating a Submit Form Button
Formatting the buttons to submit the
form to an email address
Creating a Submit Form Button
• Once the form is delivered, the next step is
getting the filled-out form returned to you.
Three options are:
– print
– Website
– email
Creating a Submit Form Button
Print Form action ascribed to a button
on the Button and Forms panel
Creating a Submit Form Button
• For all three options, you can use a button to
trigger the action.
Entering Information into the Interactive
Form
• Once you’re done designing and formatting a
document, export the file as Adobe PDF
(Interactive).
Entering Information into the Interactive
Form
Exporting to Interactive PDF dialog box
Entering Information into the Interactive
Form
• The Forms and Media option must be set to
Include All so that the form fields you’ve
created will function as such.
• The View After Exporting option will open the
PDF on their computer once it is generated.
Entering Information into the Interactive
Form
• The software that will open the PDF is an
important consideration, especially if you are
sending the PDF to many different recipients
who will be using different types of computers
with different configurations.
Entering Information into the Interactive
Form
• Most computer users have Adobe Reader
installed on their computers and since the PDF
file is itself an Adobe product, you can expect
that the file they export will open and
function exactly as you intend it to in Adobe
Reader.
Entering Information into the Interactive
Form
The exported form in Adobe Acrobat X Pro
Entering Information into the Interactive
Form
• If the user does not have Reader or Acrobat
installed, the PDF will open in a more generic
application:
– Preview (Mac)
– Windows Media Player (PC)
Entering Information into the Interactive
Form
• In most cases, the form will function as you
intend, but you can also expect some
discrepancies.