How do I make editable PDF forms using Excel?

First off let me say I apologize for not keeping my Microsoft Office skills
up to par. I just spent a few hours making a very nice-looking, printable
member registration form using Excel. Unfortunately, I now want to be able to
convert it to PDF, and make it so that the answer fields are editable in the
PDF. ...but don't see how. Is there a way to do that using Excel? (I suppose
my first problem is that I need help inserting editable form fields into
excel worksheets? It seems to me I used to be able to do that, but I have
completely forgotten to do that. I can in Word...but copying and pasting to
Word only ruins my otherwise lovely registration form. Should I be
'exporting' or something?).

Thanks

Haplo

You may be chasing after something not attainable.

I don't know if PDF files can have editable fields or not, but don't think so.

Hope I'm proved wrong, I'd like to know how.


Gord Dibben MS Excel MVP

On Wed, 12 Jul 2006 16:26:01 -0700, Haplo <[email protected]>
wrote:

>First off let me say I apologize for not keeping my Microsoft Office skills
>up to par. I just spent a few hours making a very nice-looking, printable
>member registration form using Excel. Unfortunately, I now want to be able to
>convert it to PDF, and make it so that the answer fields are editable in the
>PDF. ...but don't see how. Is there a way to do that using Excel? (I suppose
>my first problem is that I need help inserting editable form fields into
>excel worksheets? It seems to me I used to be able to do that, but I have
>completely forgotten to do that. I can in Word...but copying and pasting to
>Word only ruins my otherwise lovely registration form. Should I be
>'exporting' or something?).
>
>Thanks
>

To do this you would need the full Adobe Acrobat package. The Acrobat editor
in it does permit adding editable fields to a .pdf document. Unlike the
Acrobat Reader the full package is not free. I don't think free alternatives
for turning documents into .pdf format have that feature.

Acrobat's 'fields' are robust enough for most work - accepting text, dates,
or numeric information which you have some control over. You can even do
some Excel-like calculations between them although it is very "expensive". I
once set up a document that was required to be in .pdf format and used a few
hundred 'cells' and the file size was so huge I couldn't send it anywhere as
an email attachment!

I keep noticing that the Office 2007 package has .pdf support, but to be
honest, I haven't looked it yet, so don't know what its capabilities or
limitations are. I suspect that it is probably like the free offerings - you
can turn things into uneditable .pdf documents for distribution.

Haplo - you may be thinking of the fields you can place onto a sheet or
UserForm from the Forms menu bar: View : Toolbars : Forms. But I think once
you turn it into .pdf those are going to be non-editable.

If you get desperate for it, and if there aren't too many fields beyond the
basic name, address, phone number, email address, I'd be willing to assist.
I have Adobe Acrobat Pro, versions 6 and 7, and if you'd be willing to send
the Excel file as an email attachment to 2kmaro-at-dslr-dot-net, I'd try to
help.

But you should be warned also that there are limitations on doing the edits
- you pretty much have to print at the time of edit. Mind is fuzzy here - I
don't use Acrobat that often - but I'm thinking that you can't save the
document with the changes/entries made. They exist only while the document
is open. Seems there may be around this, but it doesn't immediately come to
mind. Well, I know one way, but it requires using the editor to enter your
information and obviously all of your recipients are not going to just have a
$200 software package laying around to handle the once-a-year need.

"Gord Dibben" wrote:

> Haplo
>
> You may be chasing after something not attainable.
>
> I don't know if PDF files can have editable fields or not, but don't think so.
>
> Hope I'm proved wrong, I'd like to know how.
>
>
> Gord Dibben MS Excel MVP
>
> On Wed, 12 Jul 2006 16:26:01 -0700, Haplo <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
> >First off let me say I apologize for not keeping my Microsoft Office skills
> >up to par. I just spent a few hours making a very nice-looking, printable
> >member registration form using Excel. Unfortunately, I now want to be able to
> >convert it to PDF, and make it so that the answer fields are editable in the
> >PDF. ...but don't see how. Is there a way to do that using Excel? (I suppose
> >my first problem is that I need help inserting editable form fields into
> >excel worksheets? It seems to me I used to be able to do that, but I have
> >completely forgotten to do that. I can in Word...but copying and pasting to
> >Word only ruins my otherwise lovely registration form. Should I be
> >'exporting' or something?).
> >
> >Thanks
> >
>
>

Haplo,
Having given the bad news about Excel and turning it into editable .pdf form
a moment ago, let me offer a work-around.

If you can get a screen shot of your Excel registration form, you can save
that as a .gif or .jpg and then insert it into a Word document as a picture
from file. Then format the picture to be Behind Text. Then set up the
fields on top of the picture in appropriate locations so that it appears to
the user like a .pdf with editable fields. By the way, this trick works in
Access reports also.

There are some good tools for grabbing such screen shots. One free one that
I've always liked is PrintKey 2000 v5.10 available for download at
http://www.webtree.ca/newlife/printkey_info.htm that's the last free version
of that program. Another excellent free one is IrfanView available from
www.irfanview.com and if you want to get a great one and are willing to pay,
I recommend SnagIt from www.TechSmith.com


"Haplo" wrote:

> First off let me say I apologize for not keeping my Microsoft Office skills
> up to par. I just spent a few hours making a very nice-looking, printable
> member registration form using Excel. Unfortunately, I now want to be able to
> convert it to PDF, and make it so that the answer fields are editable in the
> PDF. ...but don't see how. Is there a way to do that using Excel? (I suppose
> my first problem is that I need help inserting editable form fields into
> excel worksheets? It seems to me I used to be able to do that, but I have
> completely forgotten to do that. I can in Word...but copying and pasting to
> Word only ruins my otherwise lovely registration form. Should I be
> 'exporting' or something?).
>
> Thanks
>
>

thanks for the help.
I will try the screenshot workaround as it seems like the closest thing to
what we want. I'm not sure why we don't have Adobe Pro (we have Adobe
Standard) because clearly we want the extra functionality. Oh well.

Thank you very much for the advice!

Haplo.

"JLatham" wrote:

> Haplo,
> Having given the bad news about Excel and turning it into editable .pdf form
> a moment ago, let me offer a work-around.
>
> If you can get a screen shot of your Excel registration form, you can save
> that as a .gif or .jpg and then insert it into a Word document as a picture
> from file. Then format the picture to be Behind Text. Then set up the
> fields on top of the picture in appropriate locations so that it appears to
> the user like a .pdf with editable fields. By the way, this trick works in
> Access reports also.
>
> There are some good tools for grabbing such screen shots. One free one that
> I've always liked is PrintKey 2000 v5.10 available for download at
> http://www.webtree.ca/newlife/printkey_info.htm that's the last free version
> of that program. Another excellent free one is IrfanView available from
> www.irfanview.com and if you want to get a great one and are willing to pay,
> I recommend SnagIt from www.TechSmith.com
>
>
> "Haplo" wrote:
>
> > First off let me say I apologize for not keeping my Microsoft Office skills
> > up to par. I just spent a few hours making a very nice-looking, printable
> > member registration form using Excel. Unfortunately, I now want to be able to
> > convert it to PDF, and make it so that the answer fields are editable in the
> > PDF. ...but don't see how. Is there a way to do that using Excel? (I suppose
> > my first problem is that I need help inserting editable form fields into
> > excel worksheets? It seems to me I used to be able to do that, but I have
> > completely forgotten to do that. I can in Word...but copying and pasting to
> > Word only ruins my otherwise lovely registration form. Should I be
> > 'exporting' or something?).
> >
> > Thanks
> >
> >

How odd, I just mentioned "Pro" because it happens to be the product version
that I myself own and that we have where I work. I didn't realize that the
Standard version doesn't have that ability. Just went to the Adobe site and
did a product feature comparison and lo and behold, you can't do what I was
thinking of until you get to the Pro version. At least the MSRP upgrade
price is 'only' $159, and you can probably get it cheaper on line somewhere
like BuyCheapSoftware.com or AtomicPark.com

You might look at this page:
http://www.pricegrabber.com/search_g...t+professional
and get an idea of available pricing. Some of the vendors listed on that
page that I know from personal experience to be reputable (not saying any of
the others aren't, but I haven't bought from all of them) are
AtomicPark, PageComputer, NewEgg, TechOnWeb, TigerDirect, BuyCheapSoftware,
and the national names, of course. The best price there is from
RoyalDiscount.com at $140, and I would expect them to be reputable since they
are a "featured merchant" at Pricegrabber. But you could double-check them
at ResellerRatings.com to see about quality of service overall.


"Haplo" wrote:

> thanks for the help.
> I will try the screenshot workaround as it seems like the closest thing to
> what we want. I'm not sure why we don't have Adobe Pro (we have Adobe
> Standard) because clearly we want the extra functionality. Oh well.
>
> Thank you very much for the advice!
>
> Haplo.
>
> "JLatham" wrote:
>
> > Haplo,
> > Having given the bad news about Excel and turning it into editable .pdf form
> > a moment ago, let me offer a work-around.
> >
> > If you can get a screen shot of your Excel registration form, you can save
> > that as a .gif or .jpg and then insert it into a Word document as a picture
> > from file. Then format the picture to be Behind Text. Then set up the
> > fields on top of the picture in appropriate locations so that it appears to
> > the user like a .pdf with editable fields. By the way, this trick works in
> > Access reports also.
> >
> > There are some good tools for grabbing such screen shots. One free one that
> > I've always liked is PrintKey 2000 v5.10 available for download at
> > http://www.webtree.ca/newlife/printkey_info.htm that's the last free version
> > of that program. Another excellent free one is IrfanView available from
> > www.irfanview.com and if you want to get a great one and are willing to pay,
> > I recommend SnagIt from www.TechSmith.com
> >
> >
> > "Haplo" wrote:
> >
> > > First off let me say I apologize for not keeping my Microsoft Office skills
> > > up to par. I just spent a few hours making a very nice-looking, printable
> > > member registration form using Excel. Unfortunately, I now want to be able to
> > > convert it to PDF, and make it so that the answer fields are editable in the
> > > PDF. ...but don't see how. Is there a way to do that using Excel? (I suppose
> > > my first problem is that I need help inserting editable form fields into
> > > excel worksheets? It seems to me I used to be able to do that, but I have
> > > completely forgotten to do that. I can in Word...but copying and pasting to
> > > Word only ruins my otherwise lovely registration form. Should I be
> > > 'exporting' or something?).
> > >
> > > Thanks
> > >
> > >