InDesign CS6 tutorial: Creating interactive PDF forms | lynda.com

This InDesign CS6 tutorial describes how to use the Buttons and Forms menu to create interactive PDF forms. Watch more at http://www.lynda.com/InDesign-tutoria...

This specific tutorial is just a single movie from chapter seven of the InDesign CS6 New Features course presented by lynda.com author Anne-Marie Concepcion. The complete InDesign CS6 New Features course has a total duration of 3 hours and 21 minutes, and shows not just where to find the new features and how to use them, but also tips, workarounds, and practical applications for the features

InDesign CS6 New Features table of contents:

Introduction
1. Quick Start
2. Content Conveyer
3. Flexible Layouts
4. New Text Abilities
5. Text Enhancements
6. EPUB and HTML
7. Interactive Form Design
8. Production Helpers
Conclusion

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Closed Caption:

by far one of my favorite features in
indesign cs6 is the ability to
completely create forms right in
InDesign not just the pretty backgrounds
but also the form fields themselves now
I'm going to be getting to the form
filled tools in a minute but what i want
to show you is how it used to be
maybe you've never actually created an
interactive form i'm talking about those
PDF forms that you could fill in online
and then you can print out or submit up
until now this is what we had to do
first of all all forms you see in reader
or acrobat the filling had to be
designed somewhere you can design them
in Acrobat so they're either designed in
Microsoft Word or InDesign or similar
kind of program a few are in InDesign
you might for example design this form
that prospective students of rural
Academy could download from the rural
academy website and fill in to schedule
a campus tour so we created all of these
holders for their name and email address
and so on but we can actually create the
fields in any version of InDesign up
until cs6 what you're supposed to do
would be to design this and then rely on
the Acrobat form wizard which has been
around for a couple versions and I
talked about it at length in my acrobat
ten essentials training and also acrobat
10 tips and tricks but let's see how
this works going to export this to PDF
from the export menu choose PDF
interactive right up onto the desktop
we're just going to accept the default
values okay i'm going to click ok and
here it is open up in Acrobat 10 it
basically works the same way in earlier
versions as well so it's just a normal
PDF it's not a forum you're supposed to
then go to the forum area and choose
create and it says how do you want to do
this should we use the current document
yes please yes the current document and
then it scans it and says okay i'm done
now you're informed editing mode and how
many fields wasn't able to detect 11
whopping little radio button right here
they found the extra-large radio button
but don't name or the email address or
comments or the submit button
you would have to recreate these
yourselves with the forum tools and
acrobat the reason that it didn't
recognize it is because it's too
beautiful Acrobat is used to be
very plain and simple kind of forms so
there are many video tutorials including
mine and blog posts and articles all
about how to create a forum in InDesign
that the form wizard will recognize
basically you have to create a really
simple form like this one you put boxes
or lines next to the labels and then we
export again to PDF interactive i just
press command or control ii the shortcut
will accept the defaults click OK fit in
window and go to the create forms wizard
next yes i said this one and now it did
a much better job of recognizing the
fields so designers were resigned to
creating very simple forms in InDesign
if they want to be able to leverage the
wizard in Acrobat no I don't want to
save you now let's see what's new in cs6
here is a another form that looks just
like that first form remember the one
that acrobat didn't recognize except
this one has fields in it feels that i
created with the tools in InDesign let's
export this guy to PDF use the same
defaults and check that out
it's already a form we don't have to run
the form wizard it is a form we can
enter our name here i am concepts beyond
we can tab to the next field where I can
answer my email address and it was
outlined in red because it's required
that was something i set up in InDesign
i can say yes I'm interested in seeing
classrooms and the dorms or the library
there go classrooms in library my
t-shirt sizes extra large i have a bunch
of comments you might want to enter and
I right really long so i get a little
scrollbar this again I didn't indesign
the year that i'm going to be attending
our Academy is and I can choose from
this list and even that tool tip when do
you expect to enroll I did that in
InDesign 2014 and then i can even submit
and this submit button i added an
indesign and it's going to submit the
filled out PDF form via an attachment to
an email so it's asking which email
program to run so i'm not gonna go that
far right now but i just want to show
you how much we were able to do right in
InDesign now there are still some tweaks
that you might want to
you in Acrobat and i'll be getting to
that in another video in this chapter
but let's jump back to indesign and let
me show you all the miracles happen so
i'll change the view to normal mode
first let's switch our workspace from
essentials to interactive 4.pdf where
most of our tools will be located and
you can see down here that the buttons
panel has been renamed two buttons and
forms so when you make something into a
button respite dragging out of shape or
selecting an object on the page and you
come two buttons and forms and you click
the friendly little icon to convert it
to a button you can go under the type of
button and choose these form fields so I
want this thing to be a combo box for
whatever reason or a text field or a
radio button it's nice that you can just
switch from one to the next you don't
have to remove it you know he converted
from being a button then reapply it you
can just switch among types of buttons i
love that
in addition in design has added a few
more actions such as clear form so you
might make a button says reset and then
assign this action to it
print form and submit form that's the
one that I used down here part of the
interactive 4.pdf workspace has this
library that's been around ever since we
had an interactive 4.pdf workspace it
used to be called sample buttons and now
it's called sample buttons and forms
they have some preset form buttons up at
the top all the regular buttons are
below so if you want to create a series
of radio buttons really quickly you can
just use these if you wanted to I could
select this one and then just drag them
out here and drop them on the baseboard
and resize them as I'd like and they
have already been set up if i select one
and go two buttons and forms as a radio
button with a normal and a rollover on a
roller and a normal off so whether it's
selected are not selected it's really
nice couple other places that have been
updated to deal with the new forms
features are appear under the object
menu so if you go to the interactive
flyout menu it's also a place where you
can take any kind of button and convert
it to eight form sort of button or
converted back to an object and the set
tab order now applies to the actual
feels that you add in your forms you can
set the tabbing order right here and
it's maintained and then that export to
PDF dialog box will bring that back up
all this to you see right here that
under media you should just say media
announces forms and media so you want to
include all rather than appearance only
so if you were at all familiar with
working with buttons in your indesign
files then changing those two actual
form fields is very easy to do and even
if you've never created an interactive
form in either indesign or Acrobat it's
really simple so one of my top features
of indesign cs6 is this one right here
creating form fields interactive forms
right and indesign