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Building Amazing PDF forms with Microsoft Word Posted by Dmitry Ivahno on June 21, 2017 in Blog Posts, Export updated

If you’ve ever used Microsoft Word, you’ve probably built necessary skills to get your document to look exactly the way you want. But have you ever created a document for other people to use? For example, let’s say you’re organizing a field trip and want everyone to send in their permission forms electronically. To simplify the process, you could create a form in Microsoft Word. A form allows you to create placeholders for different types of information, such as text, dates, yes-no questions, and so on. However we will add one more step: converting this form to PDF fillable form for SharePoint. Everybody will be able to fill in it (even if they don’t have Word on their phone). This makes it easier for everyone to know what type of information to include, and it also helps ensure all of the information is formatted the same way. The webinar answers many questions on using Word for form creation for your Office 365. We will show tips and tricks with our product PDFSF Cloud. Works in SharePoint on premises as well! Skill level: Beginner Lead by Dmitry Ivahno, PDF Share Forms

Forms for SharePoint: Building Amazing PDF forms with Microsoft Word. Webinar transcription. Hello everyone, Dmitry is here. Our agenda. So busy, busy, busy for today. I want to show you a lot and as we go through the content, it will gradually more technical, and based on questions I received for this webinar, I think most of you can handle technical aspects just fine. Learn more about PDF Share Forms Cloud PRICING FREE TRIAL

Agenda

Before we jump in, I want to highlight two things. Number one, is that you need to know what a PDF Form is. Just in general what they are. You need to have some understanding of SharePoint as well. It doesn’t matter if you use SharePoint online, which is part of Office 365, or SharePoint on premise. Most of the content here is just about Word, PDF and SharePoint. Once we covered the methodology, approach and see some example, then there will be little commercial part, and it’s a PDF Share Forms value and besides that, I hopefully you will get some useful information and hopefully I will be able to answer your questions.

Why Microsoft Word?

You probably can say many words, but let me just say that, my daughter she’s in the middle school, 8th grade and since her 4th grade she’s using Microsoft Word to write her essay and to do home assignment. Today, Microsoft Word or similar tool, just do not require additional training. You thought like you put on your resume “Oh, I know Microsoft Word”, it just comes as essential part. And also Complex Layout. You probably can create a very professional looking document in Microsoft Word. Use tables, use colors, different fonts, highlight some text, add images and continue to go on and on. And let’s not forget that sometimes you just want to have a printable form. Something you can print maybe for long term storage or maybe just for compliant purposes and Word counts as you start as a page as a something. It can be a letter-sized page or A4 if you’re in Europe, but you start with a page. It’s easy to print, easy to work. So I think I don’t need to sell the Microsoft Word to you.

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Why PDF?

But now, why PDF? PDF is just a worldwide standard for document interchange. If I want to make sure that your document looks exactly as I see it, I would like to send you in PDF format. I don’t need to worry that you have a right fonts om your computer, I don’t need to worry if Word applications is installed on your iPhone, PDF will be just there. It’s ISO standard and there are literally hundreds of different viewers and applications can display the PDF document. Actually, Microsoft Word is one of them. It is a great environment where actually Word and PDF format do not compete with each other but rather, complement each other. In addition, PDF format is great for scenarios where you need digital signatures or you have compliance requirements that require long term storage of the documents, or maybe your offsite workers needs to submit form by email. Again, the PDF would be the right choice here.

Methodology

So, we go into the methodology. Basically, what our approach is it’s, do the form development in 2 stages. Just think of them as layers. One is a form layout. This is what we can call form design. It is what you users see on a screen or when form is printed. It may be a simple form on one page or large 4, 5 maybe 10 pages like a job application form. The second layer is a form development. This is where you put in logic. You’re adding fields, adding buttons, putting some rules like validation so it’s 2 layers, 2 steps. Now, number 1, we start with Microsoft Word. We create a form, layout we like, we will add images, we’ll add tables, then we’ll save this document as a PDF and then we go to the next step, next layer. Then we’ll open this PDF in Adobe Acrobat and we’ll add interactive fields and some data format logic like this is a data/time field or this is a required field. As a result, we will have a PDF fillable form. So let me right now stop my PowerPoint and jump and we’ll start creating these amazing forms.

Demonstration. Part one – create layout You can see right now this is my SharePoint, and I have Vacation Leave request that eventually I would like to put my documents here with data.

Let’s start with Word. This is it. I just put name and let’s put in something. We’ll have an employee name, just put some place for that and then just put something. Let’s say when the leave starts, the start date, end date. I’m using tabs right now here, you can see these little marks and the reason is just because it’s very easy later to transfer it into the table. So let me just put here, let’s say “Additional comments to Supervisor”. So if I will take this section because I really like working with these tables and I will go to “Insert” and here is a table part that I can say, convert text to table. I will use the tabs. It will right away make four different columns, click “OK.”So now, I have it as a table. And the benefit of tables, I can make it look really nice easily. Let me pick something. I feel “green” today. We’ll have a green form. So table, now let’s make it a bit layout nicer. I will have left center aligned so, this would be the first part. I don’t think I will need those underlines. Let me actually remove them. In many companies, besides this area that I have for Supervisor, there may be some area that we need to put that’s relevant to some internal policies. You may have like a hundred pages Employee Handbook. So I have a little sample text that I would like to add. We’ll just make sure that we’ll put it all here. Basically, I have legal, legal notice that you can go there.

Okay, I think we’re still missing something on this. Oh, I know. In order for the form to be amazing, we need to add logo. If there is no logo, form cannot be amazing. Okay, I have little Contoso logo. I’ll make it smaller. I put somewhere in the corner. Okay, so this is the start. We have a layout and we have tables. Let’s say we have some area, we have Employee Handbook, I may add the Employee Signature here. Okay, so I can save it as a Word document but as I mentioned our step is to save this actually as a PDF document, so I’ll click “File”, I’ll click “Save”. I’ll select “Save’ in the same location. I will call it “Leave Request” and I will select “As a PDF”. Okay, so right now there, we can see it opens right away in my browser but this is just a PDF document.

So we created the first part. We created layout what people will see if I would print it, if I have a colored printer, you will see exactly what we see here.

Demonstration. Part two – create logic Now the second part, it’s to create logic, to add the form development. Okay, for that let me go and I will use my Adobe Acrobat. This is Adobe Acrobat and I will click “Open”. I’ll select my folder, this Leave Request and click “Open”. You can probably see that I keep switching between Windows and Mac because I’m using Mac and sometimes I’m using Windows and I just want to show you that it’s all possible working together.

So you can see it’s a form, okay? So let me click “Tools”, click “Edit”. It can basically offers how to detect the field but I don’t want to how to detect the fields so I would just click “No” and now I can add the fields, so let me add a “Text Field” here. I’ll call it “Employee Name”. Now, I need to have another field here, “Date Submitted”.Lets resize it to be a bit smaller. Here you also add some of the logic. For example I would like to make sure that it’s not just a regular field but it’s actually a Date/Time. So I can select “Date”, I can select the Date/Time format. I can select this so if you in Europe you probably select something Day-Month-Year but it doesn’t matter. Right now, it’s just good. Okay we need more, few more fields. So right now I am using Adobe Acrobat but there are many other tools you can use to add the fields. Adobe Acrobat is not exclusive about that because the PDF is a standard. Okay, copy and paste fields. Let’s now rename in here. Okay, let me just add one more field, “Additional Comments”. And for this field we’ll just mark that it is actually a “Multi-line” field so I can put many lines. Okay I click “Save” and if I actually finish the form, you see that right now it is actually a fillable form. I can type my name here, I can type this Date Submitted, and basically I will be able to put the things together. Now, before we go into and try to integrate, there’s a question I would like to kind of ask to think about. Let me go here.

Two step design approach

Why do we do those two steps? Why do we separate Microsoft form Word when we create the layout and PDF? There are several reasons. If I add fields in Microsoft Word and save them, those fields just lost. So, it is possible to create fields inside the Microsoft Word but unfortunately, they’re not interchangeable with the PDF fields. So if I would go here – and I will be keep switching right now the screens because it is important for me that you see all that. So let me go back here and let’s say – and let me just fix it right away, this one. I want to make it merged. Looks better, no white lines. So right now, if I have a developer tab and in this developer tab, if you don’t have this Developer tab, you can easily turn it on. Basically click here, click “More Comments”, “Customize Ribbon”, and just check this “Developer” tab, you will be able to see it.

So right now here, in the Developer tab, I can, say, I would like to add a “Text Field”. You see it’s “Edit Here” and I can give it a name, “Employee Name”, and so I can do for other fields. But if I would save it right now again, as a PDF, this particular field will not be saved as a PDF field.

So this is one of the things that Microsoft Word and PDF format kind of not perfectly matching together that is why we’re creating fields in Adobe Acrobat. But still, it is possible to use this Word template and integrate it with SharePoint. Let us get back, so we have a fillable form. Now, if I send this form to you, you can easily fill in the form; click Save, send feedback to me. So, I’ll get responses from all of you but it’s still, I can save those responses in SharePoint document library but there is no way for me easily extract those fields from the PDF. So now we will look in additional questions we have here before we jump.

Reasons to separate logic from form layout Another reason we’ll be separating those two, it is because developers sometimes they, I’m a developer, this part for me it’s not what I am excited about but I know this is a part of real world and organizations and the people who are creating all those forms, you have your reasons to be very specific why you need to say this and not that, and compliances and liability, everything. So I want you to keep creating what you’re good at but if it comes to the complex logics, let’s say put some additional rules – complicated rules, then it would be separated from that. I can do it in a, Adobe Acrobat. So if I would be really, really technical and go something I can add it you can see it like in scripting and other things. We don’t want to talk about this but it’s a separating layout and actually the logic and fields and requirements there. Now it’s also falls into the next one. It’s about the form lifecycle. In real life, the form lifecycle does not stop after we publish the first form. It will take maybe couple weeks, a month to get feedback or maybe new legislation or a new policy of the company and you will change layout. You will go to your form here and you will change something that’s beside the signature, “I acknowledge”. Something like this. So layout will be changing but the logic can be preserved. So by separating those you can do the change without affecting all the complex logic behind that, inside the form. Question number 4, this is now about multiple languages. In this particular item I would like to thank you Damian, from Freudenberg Sealing Technologies. I believe he might be on this webinar today but he asked this question about the different languages and the fields and how they kind of – but if we think about the different languages – one of our customers is actually a school district and they provide forms for people in different languages. But the form itself, layout would be different because it would be different language. Let’s say it would be Spanish in their case, but the fields itself, it would be exactly the same. So let me maybe go to their website. I have here the enrollment forms they have.



So those already PDF forms but let me open the one form here and you will see this is a English form that they created in Word with a few fields and it’s exactly the same form would be if I would open let’s say Spanish. Layout is different but the data is the same. So you can have a two different PDF forms submitting the same type of data and you can address different languages, you still control the layout. But even in this case layout may be for Spanish or maybe German language maybe created by a person who is familiar with this language. The same way, this has nothing to do with the ability to capture the data. This is kind of why we’re going this route.

Workarounds for working with Word alone

Working with Word alone is possible but require some workarounds. So if we go here, this is a form I created. So now I have my document library right here and let’s say I have this new Word document available for me here but if I open this new Word document, it’s not my template. If I would want this Vacation Leave Request to have this – I’m sorry – to have this Word document opened, I have to do a lot of tricks. I’ll show you those tricks, we have time, I think we’re doing pretty okay.

So if I would go to Library Settings – right now I’m working in SharePoint Online, if you have SharePoint on premise then probably you will have more like a classic look which we’ll switch in a second, but this is called “modern view” – I’ll go to Library Settings and in Advanced Settings there is a template URL here. You see this Vacation Leave template and I would want let’s say this Word document, to become this template. So now let’s talk about the trick parts. The first we need to save this as a Template Document.

We can select here, it’s a Word template. I’ll give it a name, “Leave Request”. So like, we’ll check it here. Now I have this .dot for template Leave Request. Now if I am here, I cannot change this template. I mean I can change the name but this template somehow needs to appear inside the SharePoint and if I actually click here, Microsoft opens the Help and this tells how it’s needs to be done and it’s quite complicated. But let me show you. The first part, we need to open the SharePoint in Windows Explorer. For that, we need to – this particular document library – we need to switch to the Classic Mode if you’re on SharePoint online. So in Library Settings, in Advance Settings, you need to select the “Classic Experience”. If you use SharePoint on Premise, this is SharePoint 2015/2016, you don’t need to worry about this because it’s still very classic to all of us. So in the Classic Experience, this is probably you recognize better. We have a library and here in Connect & Export, there is a little Open with Explorer so for that to work, I need to be in Internet Explorer 11 and I need to click on it. It will say “Yes, I trust Microsoft” and then it will open me the SharePoint in a file system.

You can see this, my URL, my site, my document library and here is a hidden folder forms and here is this template file. So now I will copy here the file that we created here, this is our Leave Request. So this is a way to upload the template and we call it “Leave Request”. Let me just remember the name. So if I will go back to my Library Settings and I click Advanced Settings, so now I can change this template to “Leave Request” and click “OK”. So what happens now so if user will click “New”, this new document and when it opens you will be able to see our form with our little field and I can basically enter text here. I can modify the entire head and I’ll need to change the, let’s say it would be Dmitry Vacation Request.

I think it’s very subconsciously I’m doing the vacation request form because I want to have one. So in this particular form I saved, I typed the data, if I have more fields I type more fields but it’s still a fully editable form so I still can change it. You see the text here. In order to solve that, Microsoft has in the Word, the ability it’s called “Restrict Editing” and you will say “No changes” and user only can do form field and then you will do basically start enforcing, you can put a password and that will work just fine in full version of Word. Word as application that will have let’s say on somebody’s computer, it will not work in this example that I’m using, the Word Online. Word Online does not support this protected mode. So you see there is a little that you can do this but you cannot do that, but with the PDF, we can do so much more.



Is this approach a replacement for InfoPath?

And mostly answer is No because even Microsoft says there is no one product that can replace InfoPath and probably the greatest difference between Microsoft Word and InfoPath it’s called “content reflow”. So let’s say you need a form to dynamically rewrite the page content based on user input like add a section or something and this is the perfect task for InfoPath. InfoPath can do that better than PDF can. It’s called reform, “reflow content” but this content reflowing is a great feature but it’s always impractical and I have actually a blog post about actually the PDF and dynamic forms and if you will be interested we can provide you link to this one as well.

PDF Share Forms value

A bit of the commercial part, PDF Share Forms. We are in the market to integrate PDF forms with a SharePoint so it’s all in our kind of domain and you get the benefits. You get benefits as you don’t need to have Acrobat to add the fields. We’ll show you right now. You can automatically extract the data from the form into the SharePoint columns. You can add logic. You can do formulas and non-formulas. You can do validate against SharePoint list, populate dropdowns and lots of other great things. It is possible to create a form from scratch in PDF Share Forms however even I, personally – and I recommend all customers that you know I’ve talked with – to use the same approach that I am pitching you here.Use the Word to create the form, convert to PDF and use. On the Licensing part, we support both SharePoint on premise and Cloud, Office 365 – I’m showing it to you right now in the Cloud. It depends the cost how many users you have, how many templates you have, the Cloud subscription starts from $42 per company a month. So it’s like, if you only have few users who working with forms, form premise pricing starts probably with a from $1000 per year or there is a perpetual licensing as well.

Customers of PDF Share Forms

So we have customers in all verticals. And I see through the actually list of right now attendees we have a few customers attending. So it’s great that you’re here guys. Thank you. We appreciate your business. But the point that we have customers in all verticals it just shows that power of PDF and power of Microsoft Office, SharePoint specifically. So you are not going to be alone.

Demonstration with PDF Share Forms

Now let’s have a demonstration with the PDF Share Forms and where we can take it from there and what we can do. So let’s go – what I’m going to show you how I’ll be adding fields in PDF Share Forms. We can select fields to automatically extract the data, integration with content types, updating layout for version control. So let’s go back to this lovely form of ours. Let me just go back to the Word. So if we stopped here – let me remove this field since I don’t want it – we stopped here, let me save it again as a PDF. We’re just finishing up the Step No. 1. Here is our form.

So now, when I’m in the Cloud – let me just use maybe different browsers so I can show all different ways – this is a Vacation form. This is my Dmitry Request when I created in Word but right now we have this applications, PDF as a Cloud or it would be PDF Share Forms Information working if you have SharePoint on premise. This is kind of a dashboard where we’re all working with. I will say I would like to input new template. That’s the same where what I will be doing like open file in Leave Request and now I need to browse which of those Leave Request I have. This is without space. I’ll select in document library.



PDF Share Forms Cloud designer While it’s opening let me see if we have any questions in chat. I don’t see. So form opens and we do similar steps that we did in Adobe Acrobat. I will just put fields. I’ll put a Text Field and call it “Employee Name”. It is very good to actually name your fields, something that makes sense to you because when you will have a lot of fields here, trying to understand what the field 17 means is hard. Okay let me put a Date/Time, Leave Start Date, End Date and let me add the large field here. Okay, and now we can resize.

So as a form layout, when we import it I cannot move or change everything that was created in Word because this is just a layer. My part is just to create fields like now, and put a logic. So at this point we did exactly the same what we did in Adobe Acrobat but with the PDF Share Forms, you can do more. I can select the field, Employee Name, and click Map. When it happen, I can select the fields from Content Type, or Library or I can just type and see if there’s an Employee, I don’t have Employee Name so we’ll just create a column. I also can map all other fields and right now when fields are mapped it has this little icon basically changes, Employee Name should be extracted automatically.

So right now, I’ll just – you always can say this, let’s say Employee Name is a required field and I click Publish.

It will be create a link that I can send to all my employees to put on my website and say you can – this is a link, let me copy it and I can open a new window and right now when we opening a new window, that will just display this PDF form that I can fill in right away. You can see the form right here. The fields are highlighted. Remove highlighted for the minute so I can just put let’s say again, I insist on the Vacation. I can put a Date, there’ a Date Time feature, I can put comments, I can do all that so – and I click Submit and then form is saved. It’s saved right away in the documents library.

So let’s go here, Vacation Leave Request. You can see there’s a new PDF document right here and even if I just well, just do a quick preview, and you see it’s a preview that’s in the Word Online. I already can see the data that is there. But data is there it’s, it’s not a big deal. What I want to do, I want to actually see data in my list so I will just click Modify View and there’s a field that’s Employee Name and I will just say “Show me right away”. Okay, you can see it right here. We automatically extracted the data from the form to the SharePoint columns. I can open the form and if I do it will open again the viewer, I can modify the form, I can change the form and you can put a lot of logic there. The point is we automatically extracted the data. You don’t need to worry about this.



Form layout versioning But we mentioned that form lifecycle does not end just because we published the form. Let me see it here. Let me go back. Let’s say we’re back in our design and we need to change here. Let’s say we need to add one more field. “Returning to Work Date”. Let me do this to get resizing, merging. So what I’m doing right now, I’m creating the second revision and even here let’s say we put an inner footer that this is Revision, that little footnote, we’ll make it tiny . You know like all those invisible revision numbers? Okay, we changed the layout so what do we do now? We repeat the steps, we save it and we’ll call it Revision 2. I’ll save it as a PDF on this one.



Form layout update Yup, I see it here. I see it here so now let us back integrate. So when I’m in PDF Share Form Designer, you know when I’m working with my template, one of the things I have available for me in a page it’s a layout and basically update the layout, update this first layer. It’s the old one. I would like to have a new one. I click Update Source and I will select this Leave Request Revision 2. It will take a few seconds. It will save the document, save the changes.

You see now, I have Return-to-Work placed and I can see my revision number here, my old fields that we all had it’s still here and if I would be on a second layer development, I would know I just need to add one more field. And the field would name, Returning to date, Returning to Work. Actually it should be noted here, it should be a Date Time field. Okay now, if I click Publish again – I see the link is here but I already see the comments so from you saying that I need to adjust this location remember since we moved a bit, I need to adjust this field as well so here some adjusting needs to happen but it’s very straightforward. So let me open this again. You see the field is here, revision is here, and I know that my colleague Degi, he also wants to have a vacation, so I can fill in for him as well. And if I submit it, again it will be saved as a document with the data extracted. Back to Vacation Leave Request, you can see that Degi also wants to have vacation. What is important that if I go back to Dmitry form, the one that I submitted five minutes ago, the one that was on the first revision of the document, it will remain as a first revision of the document. Basically, just because the rules changed in 2017, everything that was done on 2016 should stay and be the same as it was. You can say “Dmitry did not have this field” and I do not have this little Revision text here. So basically I just show you this version control that you can achieve which is changing layout, result affecting the compliance nightmares. It will be just right here. Okay, let me see what else we have. We’re done with this one.

Questions and Answers

Now, some of you asked me questions and this is very great way and if you’ll join on other webinars, please ask questions. Sometimes I can answer before, sometimes I can answer here. The goal is to make sure that you actually get the information you would like to see. So, “Can a form created be set as a template for Content Types?” I think I just showed you. We answered on this one. Actually with the content and the next question about the multilingual input forms, what you actually would have, if I would switch back here. In a one document library, you can have a multiple document types so right now if I click here can see I have Leave Request. So you can have Leave Request English, Leave Request Spanish, Leave Request German, if you need to work with. So it would be different Content Types, they can get from the common parent Content Type. They will have all the same Employee Name but they will have a different layout based on the language. So it’s not a one form that automatically switches the languages and you need to do some programming for that, No. You just very simply focus on creating layouts, creating fields and getting the date. Done with this one. Licensing system. Just check on our website but for SharePoint on Premise there is options to have the perpetual licenses and subscription and for Cloud, it is a subscription only and pricing really depends on the volume. You can start very cost effectively and go from there. Hopefully I answered on that one. “How can we keep all parts of form building process code free to ensure customers can help themselves?” It’s a great question and I would like to put some analogy. The first step, we separate it, layout and form development. And when we say form development I’m referring to the designer part. Let me go back to the designer part. So templates, let me open this Leave Request template. What I show you right now everything didn’t require any code, not even complex rules. It’s very straightforward what needs to be there. Now of course you can put a more complex logic.

So for example if I would go to the Options, Validate, I can start putting here a lot of rules. “If” and I can select let’s say “field value”, “Employee name”, “equals” and I will just put something like “Degi Karayev”, “Then”, “Add form validation error” – “Degi is not allowed to go to vacation”. So you see I’m using rules-based approach to put some additional logic. It is a still what we called form development with no code but you still do it using similar approach “if something-something then something-something” and it’s going on and on. However, there’s all those rules that are possible and conditions.

You probably still can reach some point where you need to create a little bit of coding and this is okay, this is normal and for this reason, we have a way to do that. You can for example create a special “function” for your user and let’s say a “custom smart logic” and you can basically build like a subset of logic that later they can reuse as rule and one of them for example you can use this scripting which is it is a scripting, it is a PDF scripting and this PDF scripting is a standard, it’s a Java script but you don’t need to enable your users to do that. What you can do, you can write a logic here for them, give them this “smart logic” and they can use the “smart logic” as a kind of component basically. As you can see “Execute rule” and so on. So it is a kind of adding layer by layer complexity without making everything complex. “How to work with the PDF with formula?” Okay, two different answers. First of all if you decide just to use Adobe Acrobat itself and let me just switch to our Leave Request form. When we’re here there’s a, let’s say I would add some Button, I should have a Button, Smart Button. And here in Actions you can just put additional kind of logic what you would like to do something like “Send form” or “Show/hide fields”, “Submit form as attachment by email”, you can put a lot of things. The same way on some of the fields like this Leave Start Request, you can select the Properties, there is a Calculate part and there’s some of the functions here are just very simple one. There’s a simplified notation function. This is just a help about the PDF and if you are interested I will send you the links to that.

If you work with the PDF Share Forms then you use the designer, you will again have access to some of their, like the Calculate fields, you can put a functions here or you can put a logic again with the rules what I just showed you. Usually you would use like a Validate rule or you can put rules when form is being submitted or calculation rules, it’s all possible.

SharePoint field mapping requirements. Okay on this particular question basically all the standard fields are supported. Yes so if I’m in this SharePoint tab, it says basically it’s mapped right now to Vacation Leave Request document library, content type leave request and this shows all the fields that available.

I can go and add more fields if I want to and I can put a simple or complex logic. Let’s say here I can select Title, click Assign and select the field I would like to map and even if let’s say you want to put some very smart logic that is like advanced mode again you can put that using those Action rules that you defined doesn’t require scripting or anything. So most of the fields supported, if this is a Read-only field, you cannot update it inside the SharePoint but you can get it from the SharePoint. Something like this.

Webinar attendee questions

Okay, so let me see. Now let me see the list. If you have questions, it’s time to ask questions. Yes, the first question is “Can I get a recording of this demo/webinar?” Absolutely, we’ll just make a video of it and just put it. I know you got answer on this one, I’m sure that everybody. “What version of Adobe Editor do you recommend?” We have to specific preference. I personally using this is Adobe Acrobat 11. It works great for me. I mean you may use other tools. “Word form into the SharePoint”. Indeed it is possible to put a Word Form into the SharePoint and this is just an example as a template when I was creating. Basically you creating a template, you changing the template, and this becomes a template for the forms on this document library. You can have multiple templates if you use the Content Types and then when we click on this one Document. You can change the name of this one. It will be like I mentioned here, just opens the template here. “Question about what current version, what is the next version?” What we kind of, right now we’re just excited that there’s a fully Cloud product that I showed you right now it’s a release so we can put a lot of focus on the support of Office 365 and right now in our product development lifecycle probably looking next couple of months to add a more features as of some branding capabilities so for example when you open the viewer you can have your company logo and other things. “Question, if I uploaded the document, Word or PDF?” When I was doing the PDF Share Forms I uploaded a PDF document so we’ve just clearly separating those steps. If I go back for a second – Once form is created I’d save it as a PDF and then I either open the PDF inside Adobe Acrobat or inside the PDF Share Forms but I work with the PDF and if that PDF already had fields, we’ll pick up those fields automatically as well. The text fields can be added to either, Adobe Acrobat or in PDF Share Forms Online. You don’t need to do it twice. I was just showing you 2 different approaches, 2 different examples, without our product and with our product. The question is binding two way. Will, PDF will be updated? Yes actually it will be updated. Let me just point to everybody else what we’re talking right now with you. Let me just refresh my page. So let’s choose this one. So here is this little icon basically it’s a kind of a bi-directional binding. It means that if I update the Employee Name inside the PDF field, it will update the column inside the SharePoint. But also if the SharePoint column will be updated, it will update field inside the PDF document. This is a, a very important feature if you’re trying to use let’s say some process improvements let’s say Workflow or you would like to build some rules based on if field is changed something should be changed as well, so that’s, that works as well. The question is “If active directory is connected to the SharePoint, can fields be outer field based on employee is logging in?” Yes, absolutely. Actually right now, we connected to active directory even if it’s Office 365 Active Directory and there’s basically I can get – let me put something like “Set field value”, “Employee Name”, I’ll take a function [Close out the window], and here I have a current user. I have basically used- it will be here, sorry- click on a different place. “Set field value”, “Employee Name”, I’ll take a function, “user property”, “current user” and let’s say I’ll put here my name so in this case it will be pre-populated to Dmitry Ivahno because it knows that I’m logged in. “Are management data types fields supported?” Yes. It’s supported both and in On Premise and SharePoint Online as well. “How to create a rule to test if the Signature field is signed?” Basically the field itself, if it is not signed, it will be empty. So if we say the field is empty, it’s empty; however you can put actually a more logic here. You can make it let’s say, if I would have a signature field. You can make it required. This is one of the options. Question is “If this app is available right now in SharePoint?” It should be. I did install it so you should be able too. When you start installing field then just go through it, just the standard onboarding, just the trial and so on. Couple of things in the end, hopefully you’ll like our product. If you have questions, there is my email on bottom, [email protected] please send it. Next webinar will be the “magic of stages” and just to give you just a very quick highlight, it’s basically if your form has, let’s say we have the same example, Leave Request but then there is like supervisor need to approve, how we can basically show and hide fields, make some disabled base if it’s employee filling in or supervising in this session so this would be the webinar on May 9th and this is just like, tinyurl.com/webinar-stages. It will route you there. Don’t hesitate to ask questions or something you have in mind if you have made a form you would like me to show or you have just overall suggestions. What can we do better? We’re here, just make sure you learn and if you learn hopefully you like what additional value we can provide. On that I would like to thank you. We, perfect timing, probably maybe within a day we’ll have a recording of this webinar and here we are. Once again, thank you for your time.

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About Dmitry Ivahno

Dmitry Ivahno is a co-founder of PDF Share Forms since 2011, SharePoint enthusiast from 2004, and software developer from 1994. Dmitry is a certified SharePoint specialist and compliance expert, also he has a degree in business administration, that's why he likes to bring together his two loves: technology and business. Ask me a question

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