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Creating Interactive Forms – Indesign or Acrobat?

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    • January 17, 2022 at 2:29 am #14356676
      Greg Kelly
      Participant

      Hi,
      We use the Prepare Form function in Acrobat to create and modify application forms which were originally created in InDesign.
      Recently a sister company asked for an interactive form to be created, from which the data can be automatically extracted and uploaded directly to their CRM software.
      To achieve greater control over the document, as it was likely to go through several changes, I set up interactive elements using the Buttons and Forms panel in InDesign.
      This seemed to work quite well, apart from 2 things:
      1. There is no option to add a Date field in InDesign.
      2. Once you amend the document it resets the tab order (Object/Interactive/Set tab order…) for all fields! Very frustrating.
      My question is, to anyone who has experience with creating interactive forms, which method would you say is more efficient – adding fields in InDesign or Acrobat?
      Also, is there an easy workaround regarding the tab order reset issue in InDesign?

    • January 17, 2022 at 5:34 am #14356677
      David Blatner
      Keymaster

      I find making forms in InDesign much better than in Acrobat. However, you are correct that there are some kinds of form fields (such as date and calculation) that cannot be done in InDesign. So many forms need to be finalized in Acrobat.

      I’m not sure what you mean by resetting the tab order. What do you mean by “once you amend the document”? I have not had problems with that. I can set the tab order, then make edits, and the tab order maintains.

    • January 17, 2022 at 5:34 am #14356678
      David Blatner
      Keymaster

      By the way, if you do need to make edits to the InDesign file after creating a form, this article is really important:

      Designing Forms with InDesign? Acrobat’s Replace Pages Feature is at Your Service.

    • January 17, 2022 at 6:33 am #14356679
      Greg Kelly
      Participant

      Hmmm. I just tried the document again and the tab order was unchanged. Maybe it was a one-off, a blip or something that happens if another user edits the file. Fingers crossed it won’t happen again.
      Thanks for the link, Replace Pages feature is a Godsend!

    • January 23, 2022 at 2:12 am #14356876
      Jean-Renaud Boulay
      Participant

      InDesign is not a complete tool for making PDF forms.
      It is useful to make basic forms without interactivity but if you want to go a little further you have to use Acrobat Pro.

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