Re: Retrieving Data from an online form

[Max Wyss <prodok -at- PRODOK -dot- CH>]

Barbara,

It would be worthwile looking at a PDF (Adobe Acrobat) based solution.

You would convert your MessyWord forms into the PDF format, check and add
the form fields (where you could add some functionality and "intelligence",
such as automatically entering the location of the machine, plausibility
tests, formatting, or even elaborate calculations.

This filled out form can be printed out. For storing to reuse the data, you
have two possibilities.

With the free and freely distributable Acrobat Reader, you can submit the
forms data to a CGI script on a webserver, which will then do the further
processing.

With the not free and freely distributable Acrobat Exchange, you can - of
course - submit the forms data to a CGI script on a webserver. In addition
to that, you can save the forms data in a specific file format (FDF
format). on disk, and you can also save the filled out form as complete
document in the PDF format. Then you can do any further processing with
these documents.

Exchange is as said not free. It comes normally as part of the Acrobat
package. However, it is also available in bulk, for a quite reasonable
price, depending on the number of licences you would buy. Contact Adobe
about this possibility.

However, as you are on an intranet, I can assume that your users are
connected to a web server.
In such a case, using the free Reader would be sufficient.

For an example of a rather elaborate Acrobat form, you might look at the URL

    http://www.prodok.ch/prodok/riemen.html

This is a header page from where you can either look on-line or download
forms for the specification and calculation of belt drives. If you don't
have any Acrobat Reader already, you would first have to download Acrobat
Reader 3.02 for you platform. If you already have Reader 3.01, you might
need the Forms 3.5 plug-in. For both cases, links are on that page.

Hope, this can help.

Max Wyss
PRODOK Engineering
Technical documentation and translations, Electronic Publishing
CH-8906 Bonstetten, Switzerland

Fax:  +41 1 700 20 37
e-mail:  mailto:prodok -at- prodok -dot- ch
WWW:  http://www.prodok.ch/prodok


Bridging the Knowledge Gap


______________________



>We have created various online forms using MS Word97.  Users can
>download these forms from our intranet (thus, opening the file in MS
>Word) and fill in the data for a form's fields.  Does anyone know if
>there is a way to retrieve the data to use in a new version of the form
>(to eliminate the need to retype the data or cut and paste it)?  It also
>would be helpful if this data were in a separate file that could be read
>for other purposes.  All info concerning these needs will be greatly
>appreciated.
>Thanks,
>Barbara Curto

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