This feature is available
only in the stand-alone version of Designer.
You can use a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet as the basis to create
a new PDF form, which you can distribute to recipients by email
to collect the same type of data as in the spreadsheet.
Using the New Form Assistant, you can create a PDF form with
interactive text fields based on the column headers in the Excel
spreadsheet. The New Form Assistant creates one text field object
for each column in the spreadsheet. Text field objects are positioned
in the form from left to right and wrapped onto additional lines
if needed. The caption and binding name of each text field object corresponds
to the column header text in the spreadsheet.
If you include an email submit button object in the form, you
can distribute the form to recipients to fill and return. When you
select the Distribute Form command from the File menu, the form
closes in Designer and the Acrobat Distribute wizard appears to
guide you through the distribution process. As you receive the filled
forms from the recipients, you can organize the collected data into
data sets in Acrobat. After you receive multiple sets of form data,
you can reorganize the form data into a spreadsheet.
Keep in mind that Designer does not maintain any calculations,
scripts, images, and embedded objects such as graphs that are in
the spreadsheet document.
In Excel, open the spreadsheet you want to use to create
a new PDF form.
In Designer, select File > New.
Select Based on a Spreadsheet, and click Next.
Follow the on-screen instructions in the New Form Assistant.
You must leave Excel running to complete the process in the New
Form Assistant.
