Designing Forms with InDesign? Acrobat’s Replace Pages Feature is at Your Service.
Along with anyone else who has to design PDF forms, one of my feature requests for InDesign CS5 is the ability to add form fields directly in InDesign. While we live and hope for that to happen, we can take some solace in Acrobat’s automated forms wizard which does an admirable job of automating the task. Of course, the feature is not perfect and usually requires some manual tweaking.
But what happens when you send the form to a client to review and he/she comes back with a couple of minor changes? These would be real easy if the form fields were in InDesign but they’re not. They’ve been added to the PDF in Acrobat and when you change the artwork, you need to start all over again….or do you?
When I first started doing these types of projects I was always afraid that I’d get the project done and then discover a typo or have to make a change. That, I thought, meant redoing work in Acrobat.
And that’s when I got one of those “there has to be a better way” moments. And so, I found out, there was. The secret is in Acrobat’s Document menu and it’s the Replace Pages command. Even if you’ve created buttons or form fields you can still generate a new PDF of the page with a problem and then simply use that command to replace that page.
After selecting the command just browse to the file containing the revised artwork and tell Acrobat which page to replace.
Any interactive or form elements will remain in place, but the InDesign generated page will be replaced. Of course, if you had to move a field on the form, you’ll have to drag that form field into its new position, but that’s a lot less work than having to redo the form from scratch.
Replace Pages has saved me so much work… it’s a great tip. Thanks for posting that!
Wow! This is a life changer for me: thank you so much for sharing this tip. You’ve saved me hours of tedious work!
Thats an awesome tip, thanks!
I constantly use this feature for review and final approval of artwork. We use the comment feature for corrections, and I use to save out the comments and re-import them to the new, corrected pages. This ‘Replace Pages…’ method is far easier and faster. When I make the change suggested by the comment, I make and new PDF of that page and use ‘Replace Pages…’ to bring it in. The comments remain but the new, corrected page replaces the old. This is a very fast method of getting approvals and things out on deadline.
Replace pages also retains bookmarks and interactive buttons, which has been a lifesaver for me on many an occasion! Like Mark said, I usually just create a new PDF of the single page(s) that had changes, and then replacee that page.
Incoming plug alert!
I show how this works and include a bunch of tips (such as to save a note in the ID pasteboard reminding yourself of the PDF setting you originally used so future replaced pages will match) in one of my Acrobat 9 Tips and Tricks videos I did for Lynda.com.
It’s the last video in Chapter 4, “Updating a PDF without Losing Interactivity.”
Handy! Wish I would have seen this post a month ago, I ran into this exact situation. Saving this one for the future.
AWESOMESAUCE!
I am so happy to see this is possible. This will save me and my group so much time!
Indesign Secrets, sorry I’m going to have to tell my group about this one! The cat is out of the bag.
GREAT TIP! I just had this question come up with a form that needs to be slightly different for 5 locations. This saved me TONS of WORK!!!!
Thank you so very much. This will save me hours in future!
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!!
Your tips are great, and this one is one of the finest – but, how about getting with the program and making only your tip text and pics Printable!! I sure can’t remember all this info, and it’s nice to have a printed page of instructions to refer back to.
Thanks,
Phil
@Phil: is there something stopping you from printing?
No – I’m just thinking about saving some paper, as I get everything on this page. Comments, and all the posts. Just would be nice and tidy. Thanks for the help. Have a Great Day
yeah, creating a CSS for print output has been on our list for awhile now. Thanks for the reminder!