Fill-in Forms in PM7

[cyberboy]

Does anyone know how I can create a simple form in PM7 that users can complete in the PM7 document? I have tried creating the form as a pdf form with the appropriate fields and inserting it into the PM document, but I cannot get the cursor to tab from field to field as I would like once its inserted into the doc. Thanks.

 

[jimoblak]

Why do you need the form to be filled in within PM? Why not as a PDF file? Are all your users equipped with PM7?

 

[cyberboy]

Thanks for your response. The idea of the form is for users (4 of us, who are all using PM7) to fill it out in Pagemaker as we modify documents, indicating revision changes and dates. This particular page would not become part of the pdf document that the client receives, but rather an internal control page. I've been toying around with the "table" feature of PM7 and I can do it using this method, but I would have preferred a "form" on a page.

 

[viol8ion]

As PM is a page layout application, I doubt that you would be able to get such a form to work within PM. If you have full version of Acrobat, you could create the form in PM, convert to PDF and use Acrobat and probably use HTML style tags to do the rest. I have never done such a project, this is just theory.
When in doubt, deny all terms and defnitions.

http://www.wuli.com

 

[cyberboy]

Thanks Viol8ion. I do have a full version of Acrobat and I tried previously to create a form in Acrobat with specified tabbed fields. I was able to get this to work in Acrobat, but when placing/inserting in the PMD it lost its properties of being able to tab from one field to the next. I didn't try your suggestion of the html style tags, since I do want to keep it fairly quick and simple. I guess I'll have to go with the table feature after all...

 

[viol8ion]

Yeah, the placed PDF will not work in PM as you are attempting. It would only work in acrobat. When in doubt, deny all terms and defnitions.

http://www.wuli.com

 

[BionicJohn]

> > an internal control page

PM was conceived for single users and has no tracking system. Neither is PM happy with networks. (See Adobe's Knowledgebase:

http://pagemakersupport.adobe.com/adobeknowbase/root/public/pm1163.htm

)

If a publication is being worked on by several users then a system of tracking updates (and backups) is essential. Dated subfolders is one way.

Iechyd da! John
20:09 06/11/02 BST

 

[cyberboy]

I appreciate your input BigJohnD. The tracking and networking of documents is not a major problem for us, other than the usual niggling problems that Pagemaker users have when using Windows. We don't have more than one person working on a document at a time, but different users may modify a given document several months apart and it is in this context that we wanted to track the changes by adding a "revision history" page at the end of the document for users to complete. It looks like we'll be going with the table feature.

 

[Vida]

Maybe I'm missing something, but it sems to me that, for your internal checks and changes, you could use a PDF of the document. This is relatively easy to set up and have suggestions attached to, highlights, whatever in Acrobat. When the finished pages are approved, one person could easily edit the PM file for the client.

 

[cyberboy]

Vida, I guess it's always difficult to fully comprehend how a user's document work-flow is arranged, just based on a couple of postings, but although we do generate PDFs, it is the client that gets that version. We only work with the PMD. Generally, we have not had the need to make comments, etc., within our PMDs, but we are modifying our procedures and find the need to now include this "form". Actually, the table feature seems to work quite well for our purposes. Regardless, another pair of eyes always brings a fresh approach. Thanks for responding.