Filling in forms, Is the form fillable – Adobe Acrobat 9 PRO Extended User Manual
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USING ACROBAT 9 PRO EXTENDED
Forms
Last updated 9/30/2011
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Distribute (send) forms to recipients
Filling in forms
Is the form fillable?
Not all forms are fillable. Sometimes form creators don’t convert their PDFs to interactive fillable forms. Or, they
intentionally design a form that you can fill in only by hand. These non-interactive forms are called flat forms.
Fillable forms visually differ from flat forms
A. Typewriter tool lets you type in flat forms. Here, the tool is available in purple message bar. B. Typewriter tool available in Tools menu.
C. Typewriter tool available from floating toolbar. D. Save form, then open in Acrobat and choose Typewriter tool in Tools menu. E. Purple
message bar indicates presence of fillable fields. F. When clicked, shows where fillable fields exist.
Flat fillable
A flat form does not have interactive fields. However, you can use the Typewriter tool to type information
over blank form fields, and then print a copy of the completed form. In the free Reader, you can use the Typewriter
tool only if the creator of the form enabled it. You cannot enable the Typewriter tool from within Reader.
Flat form in browser (no Typewriter tool)
If the purple message bar or Typewriter toolbar isn’t displayed, you cannot
fill in the form online. Save the form and open it directly in Acrobat. Then use the Typewriter tool to fill in the form.
Interactive fillable
An interactive fillable form contains fields that you can select or fill in. In an interactive form, the
pointer changes to a different icon, depending the field. For example, the Hand
tool changes to an I-beam
when
you can type text into the form field.
Flat form in browser (no Typewriter tool)
Flat fillable forms (three variations)
Interactive fillable form
D
F
E
A
B
C