At the outset, PDF documents are not the most ideal way to capture information. Why? Because not every computer, OS, or browser is configured to support PDF fill-in-the forms processing. So I have to ask – why PDFs? Is there a business requirement that has driven you toward this document format?

It supports XFA, AcroForms, Digital Signatures, Import from Adobe Acrobat or LiveCycle Designer. It has its own HTML5-based designer and yes it works on iPad and Android.

On the iPad in particular it works with PDF Expert or even original Adobe Acrobat mobile (after their recent update)

The first solution that comes to mind is iFormBuilder, a forms app that allows you to create a cloud database with a field app that can capture data using really nice touch gestures, it can capture images, and even signatures. To streamline the process, you might need some back-end automation that reads the data and adds it to your CRM system, but these are pretty trivial things to build once ou have a good mobile field solution in place.

Quick question for you. We are a company that certifies equipment annually. We are looking for a mobile solution that will allow our technicians to go onsite, pull out an ipad, pull up certification form, fill in the appropriate reading we see, press a “save and send” button that, ideally, will both send the document to the email on file for the customer and save the file in our crm under notes. (we are currently using the enterprise version of salesforce). Any suggestions or ideas? If you, perhaps, have a viable solution to this issue and the time to help implement it, I’d certainly compensate you for your time!

Thank you!

Steve

Popular PDF reading tools on iPad also support PDF form fields and action buttons (such as a submit button). If the PDF reader supports PDFs in this way, then your form should work, because, the PDF is, in fact, is a standard.

If you are asking what is necessary to process the form once the form fields are filled in and submited, the answer must focus on the web service that handles the form data. Typically, a server is required to received a form post, much the same way any web form is posted to a server which parses the data fields and adds them to the database. I believe Adobe provides the development framework for this in the LiveCycle platform.

PDFPenPro (similar to LiveCycle Designer) provides specific controls and options to create forms with submit actions and it also support attributes so that the action can email the form to a specific address (as opposed to posting it to a web services of some sort). Submit actions can also be set to email only data or the data embedded into the modified PDF. Much of the strategy you choose depends on the business requirements – you may need to do more than just receive the completed form’s data fields such as also save the actual document and customer’s signature for legal or billing purposes.

And of course, a more definitive answer to your question involves a complete review of your business requirements. If your business requirements would allow for a mobile database application, you could circumvent the PDF as a capture model by providing an end-to-end data capture app using something like FileMaker Go.

Thanks for the information shared in the article .But i was actually looking forward for the details that “How to create a PDF form which can run on iPad, iPhone ” where users can fill the information / data in the form and then proceed to next step (probably email to others or store the data in database)

I want to know that do i need to follow some standards or convention to create the PDF for iPad /iPhone. I have already designed the PDF form using LiveCycle Designer ES2

A quick response would be highly appreciated .

Thanks
Alok

Leonard Rosenthol
PDF Architect
Adobe Systems