Filling Forms

[adobenewbie85]

My apologies for such a silly issue - most people using these forums are experienced acrobat users. I have a number of PDF forms to fill out and return via e-mail; however, I can not figure out how to type in the fields. The documents allow me to put the cursor in the fields to type, but when I attempt to fill in, nothing changes. After talking to the people who sent these forms, I should be able to fill them out, as the document was meant to allow it. I am using Acrobat Reader 8, and if there is some way to change the settings to allow me to fill in these forms, please please let me know. Normally I only use the program to open documents and print (explaining my lack of understanding of the program); however, these are time-sensitive so I need to fill and send these ASAP. Thanks for any suggestions or help!

 

[FredWagner]

If the forms were emailed to you, have you saved them to a local drive, and then Opened Acrobat Reader, and Opened the files from there ? The situation you describe sounds like you might be opening them as email attachments within the web browser, with just browser extensions rather than the full Acrobat Reader.

Fred Wagner

 

[mjt39]

May I formulate adobenewbie's question in another way.
My insurance agent sent me an email:
(apology in case of wrong technical terms, I am translating (virtually) from German)

>Regarding the car accident caused by you, please fill in the report form, which is enclosed as a pdf-file attachment, and send it back to me<.

What he meant was print the form on paper, make my ‘x’s on the form by hand, and then send back the form as a letter by post.
I have Adobe Acrobat 6.0 Prof (I got it with Photoshop
CS). I always thought, one day I might need it to edit a pdf file.
So I downloaded my agent’s form to my harddisk. Started my Acrobat 6.0 Prof and opened the form.
Now, how can I put the form in a state so that I may type in my ‘x’s? Or can’t I?

michael thomas

 

[FredWagner]

I've seen ads for products that let you make any PDF form capable of being filled out - do a little Google searching.
there is even an online site that will let you do it for $9.95 per form.
If you just want to fill out this one form in a professional manner, here's what I did once - I had a traffic ticket I knew I could successfully argue - California has a 'Trial by Declaration' form that you can complete and submit. I used MS Publisher to create text boxes to print exactly what I wanted on an overlay, including a diagram of the traffic situation. Once I'd gotten the layout exactly right, holding a print of my publisher file up to the light against a print of the form, I simply printed my overlay On a print of the form - two passes through the printer for each side. the result looked like an example out of a law textbook. I got my case dismissed.

Fred Wagner

 

[cmeagan656]

Started my Acrobat 6.0 Prof and opened the form.
Now, how can I put the form in a state so that I may type in my 'x's?

I'm using Acrobat 7.0 Standard but it should be similar.

1. Open the file that you saved to your hard disk
2. Go Tools ->Typewriter and select Typewriter
3. Place the cursor where you want to type using the .... at the bottom of the cursor as a gude
4. Type your replies, or mark your Xs
5. Save the file
6. Click File ->email and email the form back to your insurance agent or print off the completed form and mail it back by snail mail if that is what your insurance agent requested.

Cheers.