Re: [PDF-Forms] PDF Print driver?

[G]

Stefan, Thank you for your comments.  I will explain in greater detail what I want to accomplish.  I want the users of my form to be able to use Adobe Reader version 6 to complete the form and save it.  The form, incidentally, is a home inspection report. Here are some pertinent facts: 1. It is not necessary to extract data from the form. 2. The user needs to be able to save a copy of the completed form. 3. The form is often used in the field on a laptop (notebook, etc.).  There is never access to the Internet or other networks. 4. There will be no further processing of the completed form. 5. The user must be able to print a hard copy of the form in the field on a portable printer. 6. Many users of the form have very limited knowledge of computers or software. (at present there are approximately 500 inspectors using the form) 7. OpenOffice.org office suite is distributed on the CD with the form.  However, most users of the form prefer not to use OpenOffice.org. 8. The form sells for only $40.  Users expect to be able to use it without paying anything additional. 9. The users are given a CD that includes Excel, OpenOffice.org, and PDF versions of the form. 10. Users of the form typically do not have the full version of Adobe Acrobat. In fact, I have sold over 500 copies and none of the users has ever had the full version of Acrobat. 11. The PDF version is the easiest of the three versions to use.  Given the opportunity, most users will use the PDF version. In case you are wondering why I have included a PDF version of the form in the package; I had heard that Adobe was planning to allow filling in of forms in version six of the reader.  I had long wanted to put the form in PDF format but it was not practical to do so.  What I did not know was that Adobe would not allow the data to be saved along with the form after it has been filled in.  Now that the form can be completed in Adobe Reader, I need to be able to provide a means for saving the completed form. Several folks have suggested trying PDF995; which is something that I intend to do.  However, it costs around $10 so if I can find an even less expensive way to go, I will. Thanks again for you help. George Stefan Barth wrote: PDF-Forms is a service provided by PDFzone.com | http://www.pdfzone.com/ __________________________________________________________________ am 17.12.2003 2:08 Uhr schrieb Olivia Ross unter [EMAIL PROTECTED]: I have a multi-page form that I distribute in PDF and Excel formats. The users of the form typically do not have Adobe Acrobat or any other means to create a PDF file. Adobe Reader will allow filling in the form but will not allowing saving of the file with the form field data. I have had several people tell me that they have seen free or very inexpensive PDF print drivers but I have not been able to find one. Do any of you know of a free or very inexpensive PDF print driver? George I don't quite understand what you are trying to accomplish: Do you want people to fill in the excel form, make a PDF from it and send it to somebody for further processing? Or do you want them to print the filled-in PDF-forms to a new PDF? Either way I see some difficulties extracting data from a PDF file which has just been "printed". (Certainly the advantage would be to retain a kind of digital hardcopy.) If the point is to get data from the user to some kind of processing, assuming there is a network structure, certainly sending the form data to a database would be the more efficient way. By the way, if you have one license of Acrobat, you might set up a "watched folder" on a public share of a network and have people "print to file" to that folder. There are free Adobe Postscript Printer Drivers to print to file with that should do the trick. One more thing: as far as I know, OpenOffice is a FREE office suite which has the built in capability to save its documents as PDF files. Might be worth checking out. Cheers, Stefan Barth