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In Windows, you can start with an existing form or you can create a new one in an authoring
Electronic documents
application, such as Word, Excel, or InDesign, and convert it to PDF. Or you can start with an existing PDF and use
Acrobat to add form fields and other forms features.
In Acrobat 8, you can create a PDF from a blank page and use the new PDF Editor feature to add
Blank documents
text. Then, you can use the Forms tools to add form fields of various types. Or, in Windows, you can create a form
in LiveCycle Designer, taking advantage of its powerful collection of advanced features and tools.
LiveCycle Designer templates (Windows)
select an appropriate type of form document. Then, you personalize it by swapping out placeholder text, graphics,
form fields, and properties with custom ones that you provide or define.
Using Acrobat versus LiveCycle Designer (Windows)
LiveCycle Designer is included with Acrobat Professional for Windows. LiveCycle Designer enhances the form-
creation features in Acrobat and offers a robust collection of advanced features and controls.
Note: Acrobat users on Mac OS can create and edit forms in Acrobat only if those forms haven't been opened and saved
on Windows in LiveCycle Designer. Of course, Acrobat and Reader users on Mac OS can open and fill in any PDF form,
regardless of whether it was created on Windows or Mac OS, or which program was used to save it.
Use either Acrobat or LiveCycle Designer to do any of the following:
Similarities
• Use a paper document scanned to PDF as the basis of a form.
• Convert an existing electronic document to PDF, to be the basis of a form.
• Design forms, starting with a blank page. (Forms created from a PDF using the PDF Editor feature in Acrobat have
limited formatting options available.)
• Run automatic form-field recognition on existing PDFs and documents converted to PDF.
• Edit PDF forms created in Acrobat.
• Create forms to distribute by email or post on a website for people to download onto their computers for
completing in Acrobat or Reader or for printing and completing by hand.
• Create forms that users can complete in Acrobat or Reader and submit through email.
Acrobat and LiveCycle Designer differ in these ways:
Differences
• In LiveCycle Designer, you can start with one of the blank, built-in templates—predesigned layouts that you edit
and customize.
• You must use LiveCycle Designer to edit any forms that have been opened and saved in LiveCycle Designer, even
if the form was originally created in Acrobat.
• In LiveCycle Designer, you can extend compatibility back as far as Acrobat 6.0 and Reader 6.0 for most form data
fields. In Acrobat, you can extend compatibility as far as Acrobat 4.0 and Reader 4.0.
• LiveCycle Designer can create forms in formats that it can convert into HTML. This ability makes LiveCycle
Designer the better application to use if you intend to post the interactive form on a website for people to fill in
and submit from within a browser. You can also integrate PDF forms into existing workflows by binding forms to
XML schemas, XML sample data files, databases, and web services.
• With LiveCycle Designer, you can use scripting objects, integrate a form with a data source, and create dynamic
forms.
Using the wizard from the Forms > Create New Form command, you can
ADOBE ACROBAT 3D VERSION 8
User Guide
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