[Hidden-tech] Printing a PDF with filling forms

[Will Loving]

When creating forms that will be used cross-platform, make sure to use fonts
that can be counted on to be on nearly all machines, Mac or Win. The most
commonly used are Arial (10 or 11 point generally works well) and Verdana,
the most widely used font on the web, 9 or 10 point. If you need a fairly
condensed font, I've also had good luck with Tahoma.

I generally avoid Times (regular or New Roman) and especially the old
default Mac font Helvetica. Helvetica is not on most Windows machines and
almost always gets replaced with Arial at a much larger size. Of course, in
comparing Windows and Mac, the same font in the same size will generally
appear larger on Windows, so keep that in mind as you design.

Will


on 7/6/09 12:33 PM, Rich at rich at on-the-net.com wrote:

>    ** Be sure to fill out the survey/skills inventory in the member's area.
>    ** If you did, we all thank you.
> 
> 
> It looks like we have pinned down the issue -- a few comments from
> HT'ers about some of the internal features of PDF/fields
> and revisiting a startup message on that page plus a bit of
> experimenting found it.
> There is a printable control on the fields that was properly set However ...
> 
> The form was filled in on a mac and we were printing on a PC -- and the
> fonts didn't match,
> there is an option about saving fonts locally in the Advanced menu which
> doesn't seem to
> make any difference, except making the file larger (much) -- and it was
> set on the mac
> side.
> 
> Thanks for every one's quick response -- it lead to trying the right
> experiment,
> which all my googlging didn't.
> 
> Rich
> 
> Rich wrote:
>> We have a pdf form with fillin's and what to print the page with the
>> fillin's visible,
>> sounds too easy -- only when you try to print, you get only the blank
>> form.
>> 
>> I have Adobe Acrobat 7.0 professional, which has lots of form
>> creating/editing features
>> and there is a checkbox on the top of the page that shows all field
>> values when checked.  When using print (document) all we get is a
>> blank form,
>> using print (form feeds only) we get a few check marks from later
>> pages, none of the text fields
>> that show values on the screen.
>> 
>> I can see lots of features for exports/collecting data, they are so
>> complex I've not
>> gotten them to work - and besides a spreadsheet is not what I want.
>> 
>> The form is: http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1023.pdf
>> 
>> Any hints or other tools, web sites whatever I can use.
>> 


-- 

William M. Loving
Dedication Technologies, Inc.
7 Coach Lane
Amherst, MA 01002-3304   USA
will at dedicationtechnologies.com
Tel: +1 413 253-7223   (GMT ­5)
Fax: +1 206 202-0476