Download ebooklet – Thinking about developing PDF forms
To download the “Thinking about developing PDF forms” free ebooklet, please complete the first four boxes and press Go. A link to the document will then appear.
It should be noted that this ebooklet was produced during early 2012. Later that year, Adobe released version XI of Acrobat and Adobe Reader and these in turn were superseded in April 2015 by the latest versions of Acrobat, which are referred to collectively as Adobe Acrobat DC. The XI and DC versions of Reader allow form saving on a desktop PC without requiring reader extensions or extended rights to be applied to a form. This applies just to Acroforms though; dynamic PDF forms developed using LiveCycle Designer still require reader extensions or extended rights to be applied to a form in order for the data to be retained when the form is saved on a PC. Please bear this point in mind when reading the ebooklet.
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2 Responses to “Download ebooklet – Thinking about developing PDF forms”
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Hi I have created interactive pdf forms but find that getting a signature in digital format awkward, what software would you consider for both Android and Apple ios.
Just to be clear: we are talking about “scribble” signatures rather than “true” digital signatures which require digital certificates. A PDF form with signature fields created with Adobe Acrobat will require a “true” digital signature to be entered if Adobe Reader is used on a PC, whereas signature fields are treated as “scribble” fields on tablets. We also assume you are referring to Acrobat forms as opposed to LiveCycle forms, as the latter depend on server software to render them for tablets.
At Evenlogic, we have found, for an iPad or iPhone running iOS, Readdle’s PDF Expert generally to be preferable to Adobe Acrobat Reader. To support both Android and iOS, you are probably limited to Adobe Acrobat Reader. Here is a link to an article that compares other Android alternatives to PDF Expert: https://pdf.wondershare.com/top-pdf-software/pdf-expert-for-android.html.
We agree that electronic signatures tend to be a bit awkward with Adobe Acrobat Reader on tablets. The signature can be placed anywhere and doesn’t necessarily fit in a designated signature field. We have found the signature handling by PDF Expert on iOS to be more favourable. The signature automatically scales to fit in a signature field and the specified fields can be optionally locked once the signature is applied. The signature can be saved and applied to subsequent forms. The signature field works very well in a situation where an engineer, for example, signs a report using his saved signature and then a customer scribbles his signature on the tablet to countersign the report.