Showing posts with label e-mal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label e-mal. Show all posts

Friday, 17 September 2010

How to create an e-mailable PDF form in OpenOffice.org

Suppose you wanted to send someone a PDF with form elements and a submit button at the bottom. Suppose when they clicked on the button you wanted the form contents to be sent as a PDF back to you. Here is how to do it.
Stage 1
Create the form in OpenOffice.org
Step 1
Create a new document using OpenOffice.org writer.
Step 2
Load the form controls using View->Toolbars->Form Controls and View->Toolbars->Form Design.
Step 3
Get your document ready for form elements by adding a title and pressing Carriage Return (Enter, <CR>, Return) a few times.
Step 4
Put the document in design mode using the 'Design Mode On/Off' switch in the form controls.
Step 5
Add form items to your document by selecting them from the form controls dialog, then dragging on to your page.
Step 6
Your final form entry should be a submit button. In the button properties, the 'Action' field should be set to 'Submit form'.
Stage 2
Set the form to e-mail
Step 1
Click on the 'Form' (properties) button on the form controls dialogue.
Step 2
Set the URL field to mailto:your.emailaddress@yourdomain
Stage 3
Export your document to PDF making sure that the 'Submit format' is FDF.
Stage 4
Test your newly exported PDF by filling in the fields and pressing the submit button.