What are PDF files?
Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) is a world standard for the display and distribution of electronic documents. Using Adobe's free Acrobat Reader, you can view PDF documents on just about any computer. With web pages, the printed and on-screen appearances may differ greatly, but with PDF files what you see on the screen is what you'll see on paper when you print it out. It is ideal for forms needing to be filled out, emailed, printed and faxed.
PDF files with interactive forms
PDF files can now contain interactive forms. That is, the forms can be filled in online. But this technology is still relatively new and there are some things to keep in mind.
- Acrobat Reader is Adobe's free application for reading PDF files. Using the current version of Acrobat Reader you can fill in and print out interactive forms.
- But you can't save the filled-in form using Acrobat Reader. For example, if an interactive PDF form contains a filled-in name or date, etc., you can't save the added data to the PDF file. You can print the changed file but you can't save it. Not with Acrobat Reader.
- There's an exception to this capability for printing filled-in forms: Any material typed in after a vertical scroll bar appears on the PDF form can't not be printed, and of course it can't be saved either. Ample space has hopefully been provided so that this doesn't occur. But if it does, rememeber that anything typed in after a scoll bar appears can't be printed or saved.
- Because your filled-in form can't be saved using Acrobat Reader, it can't be included as an email attachment either.
In order to save a filled-in PDF form you must fill in the form using Acrobat Professional or an inexpensive third-party product such as PDFill. You might find it worth your while to get one of these products, especially if you want to attach your filled-in form to an email.