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Beforehand I apologize for my not-so accurate description and weak English.

So I have designed an agreement (or contract) form with several pages in Adobe Illustrator, and I want to have the last page to be an interactive PDF. Which I have been trying to do so in adobe InDesign.

As for the layout I don't have any issues because I simply just copy the AI artboard with all the elements and paste it into InDesign but because I'm a very beginner user in InDesign I have a few issues which I need help with:

  1. I need to provide a dual answer field like a YES / NO field, somehow to act when "NO" is selected some other fields and buttons hide automatically and when "YES" is selected it show more fields and buttons.
  2. The filling field's text style (font name, color, …) cannot be changed. Only size is adjustable and that is very limited. Is there a way to customize this?
  3. I would like to have a button at the end to act as "register" or "send", to email me the result of the filled/answered form. Unfortunately the command mailto:[email protected] only works as a hyperlink to compose an email (I can even define the email subject), but I want the information provided by the other side in the last page (filled/answered fields) to be sent to my email as a final version to rely on (hopefully with date of signed/filled).
  4. Also do I have to copy all the other pages of my form into InDesign in order to have one whole interactive PDF (but actually only the last page is interactive)? Or is there a way to combine the single interactive page with a normal PDF created by Illustrator?
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    If you want all that interaction it is far better that you make a webpage. A pdf normally is meant to be a file to be viewed and printed. Especially point 3, where you need a script on a server that recives the info and sends the mail.
    – Rafael
    Sep 8, 2020 at 17:34
  • You can't have a button send any PDF anywhere unless you use a web server and CGI. See here: helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/using/… When you consider this, I always question the use of PDF, since a web link would be more universal and trouble free.
    – Scott
    Sep 8, 2020 at 18:01
  • As far as adding the interactive page to your pdf, with acrobat pro you can use the organize tool to add a page to the pdf very easily. Just select organize and drag the interactive pdf page to the document. Then move it to any position you want. Close the organize tool and save the pdf.
    – nocturns2
    Sep 8, 2020 at 19:58

2 Answers 2

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If you save the Illustrator file out as a PDF, you can work in Acrobat with the Prepare Form tools to do a lot of what you are trying to do.

As far as submitting the form, you can add a "Submit" button to the PDF, but it has to link to a web based CGI script to receive it.

Adobe has a good tutorial here: Add Submit Button

However, for future use, that link might not stay active, as Adobe changes their methods so often.

Otherwise, you can submit the completed form over email, but that requires the person filling it out to have a computer based email like Outlook set up on the computer to send it.

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JavaScript Programming - Adobe PDF (Form)

  1. In Adobe Acrobat Pro DC, select "Tools" > "Prepare Form" > right-click selected [dropdown] element > click "Properties" > select "Actions" > select Trigger [Mouse Up] > select "Action" [Run a JavaScript] :

If dropdown.value is selected, send Form as email Attachment :

if ( this.getField("dropdown1").value == "SelectedValue" )

var EmailAddress = "AccountName@Domain"; var ccEmail =" "; var EmailSubject = "Subject"; var EmailMessage = "Message";

var EmailURL= "mailto:"+EmailAddress+"?cc="+ccEmail+"&subject="+EmailSubject+"&body="+EmailMessage;

this.submitForm( {cURL: encodeURI(EmailURL), cSubmitAs:"XML", cCharSet:"utf-8"} );

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  • This will send an email.. but not the PDF itself.
    – Scott
    Sep 8, 2020 at 20:01
  • JS has been updated to reflect Form Email Attachment - using this.submitForm() Sep 8, 2020 at 20:13

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