Excel would be far easier to do the form, and better for importing into Access than a PDF. Dropdowns in Excel are possible and it's not hard to learn how to make them.
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel-help/create-or-remove-a-drop-down-list-HP005202215.aspx On Wed, Jul 13, 2011 at 1:13 PM, Scott Spurlock <spurlock.sc...@yahoo.com> wrote: > > Yes, this is what I'm trying to accomplish. My client wants a PDF (or Excel > or Word) form that he can send to people, have them fill out, and email back > to him. He then wants to be able to import that data into an Access database > without having to retype anything into an Access form. Eventually, he'll > want reports to decipher the data. I was hoping to avoid a lot of VB since > I'm not too familiar with it. There will be a lot of PDF forms, though, to > justify getting to know it. I guess. After hours and hours of research, > though, I still don't even know if this is possible. > > Unfortunately, all of the other solutions won't work since this can't be > web-based. This is a government client and I can't just put the form > anywhere I want on the web. And it's too late at this point to try to find a > place on one of their servers since that involves a lot of red tape. Time is > not on our side. So, nothing web-based. I really wish this could all be > done on the web with a SQL Server backend, but my hands are tied. > > So, he wants the people to fill out a PDF form and email the form to him. Then > he wants to be able to scrape the form field data off and into Access DB. > Does that sound like the issue? > > There probably is a better solution using Visual Basic. You might be able > to write something in VB to use an Acrobat component to read the PDF and fish > out the form data and put it in the database table for each PDF. You might > even > be able to do this in batch form. There would need to be a lot of PDF forms to > make it worth doing though. > > There is a reason that web/database work i > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/message.cfm/messageid:346221 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/unsubscribe.cfm
