Operation Manual

Using PDF Forms 271
All web-ready forms have one thing in common—they must be submitted to
allow data to be collected. Typically, you may have come across this on web
sites when you enter details into a form then submit the data by pressing a
Submit button. The same applies for PDF forms—a Submit button can be
configured in order to submit the form data to the web server. You can either
create the button unaided or use the Form Submit Wizard (see below). Either
way, the use of the submit process is the major difference between web-ready
and other less dynamic forms.
The web process, as mentioned, requires a web server to operate. Not everyone
will have access to or even want to operate their own web server so, as an
alternative to this, you can use Serif Web Resources. This is a free web to
email gateway service which will collect your valued form data at Serif and send
it to your email address—the service does require that you firstly have a
Customer login (for security reasons), which will allow you to create, edit and
delete Form IDs via a web page accessible from the Wizard. The Form ID, a
unique 30-digit number, is required for the service to operate and is generated
automatically when you enter your destination email address in the above web
page.
No personal data will be stored on Serif web servers. All form data is
redirected in real time.
Submitting Form Data
The submission of form data sounds a very complicated operation but by using a
Form Submit Wizard the process is relatively straightforward. The Wizard not
only creates a Submit button for your form, but configures the underlying
submit process and the format in which your form data is to be stored in.
The submit process is made either to Serif Web Resources or to your own web
server address (e.g., http://testserver.global.com/forms/collect.asp).
To run the Form Submit Wizard:
1. Select the Submit Button from the Button flyout menu on the
Form toolbar.
2. In the first step, start the wizard by clicking the Next> button.
3. Choose either Serif Web Resources or your own server as the
destination of your form recipient's data. The former is appropriate if
you don't have access to your own web server.