You must have a professional version of the Adobe Acrobat software. I'm currently using Adobe Acrobat X Pro. You'll also need a more recent version of Microsoft Word. I'm using 2010.
First create the form as a word document and design it exactly how you want it to look. For example:
Then on the File tab, select Save As Adobe PDF. After it saves, it should open up in Acrobat. If it opens in Reader, you need to close it and reopen it in Acrobat.
In Acrobat, click Tools, then Forms, then Create:
Choose the current document as the source. Acrobat will examine the document and look for anything that appears to be a placeholder for a form field. It then adds a PDF form field to that spot. If there are any places that it didn't find, you will have to add them manually. There is a lesson here. When creating the form initially in Word, become familiar with what Acrobat is looking for, so there is less you have to do manually.
After the form is created, click the Close Form Editing option, and save. At this point, you have a fillable PDF. To Add a form field manually, choose Edit in the Forms menu, and then choose Add New Field. You'll be given a choice of what type of field. After placing and sizing the field, right click on the field and choose Properties to change the appearance.
Tips
- To create a group of radio buttons (i.e. Yes/No, etc.) , create the radio button fields individually and name them the same thing, but give them different choice property values.
- If you create a checkbox in the Word document, Acrobat will automatically set up the radio buttons for you. However, if you put them in separate table cells, Acrobat won't group them together correctly.
- To lock down the document, click Protection, More Protection, and Security Properties. Choose Password Security as the Security Method. Check the box that says "Restrict editing and printing of the document...". Then provide a password. This password can be provided if you wish to edit the document. Check the "Enable copying of text...." checkbox, and set Printing Allowed to "High Resolution" and Changes Allowed to "Filling in form fields..."
