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Hello,
I am trying to make a basic survey with check boxes, that can be emailed to a target audience, have them open it and fill it out via computer/tablet (including checking boxes and writing opinions on provided lines), and send it back, completed.
Can Pages 5.5.3 do that?
Thank you,
Gerianne
iMac, OS X Yosemite (10.10.3)
Pages is not for you.
For a start you are assuming not just that your target audience has Pages, but the same version of Pages to open the document.
There is no Pages for Windows so that rules out 95% of your audience and even amongst Mac users Apple has made the versions so incompatible that even if all Mac users used Pages it is unlikely it would be same one.
Secondly Pages does not have checkable boxes, nor the ability to have forms with fillable regions (at least not without a lot of fiddling and confusion for users).
You could however make a blank form and export that to pdf and add the interactivity in the pdf with Acrobat Pro. Including the data collection,
Peter
Pages is not for you.
For a start you are assuming not just that your target audience has Pages, but the same version of Pages to open the document.
There is no Pages for Windows so that rules out 95% of your audience and even amongst Mac users Apple has made the versions so incompatible that even if all Mac users used Pages it is unlikely it would be same one.
Secondly Pages does not have checkable boxes, nor the ability to have forms with fillable regions (at least not without a lot of fiddling and confusion for users).
You could however make a blank form and export that to pdf and add the interactivity in the pdf with Acrobat Pro. Including the data collection,
Peter
Peter,
Interesting idea - I've never worked with Acrobat Pro. I'll look into that!
Thank you for taking the time to answer my question!
Gerianne
The free LibreOffice supports in-line document form components. Chapter 15 of the LibreOffice Writer v4.2 PDF manual is devoted to Forms implementation.
Although there is a new LibreOffice Vanilla in the OS X App Store, it has some teething problems where using Open with, double-click, and drag/drop on its application icon do not open Word documents, when the open with menu shows it as the default application (without Office for Mac installed). They have also disabled drag/drop of PDF on the application icon to open PDF documents for editing.
I have downloaded LibreOffice and plan to try it soon. Thank you for this idea!
Viking: I have installed LibreOffice, and have the document in place. Had to make a lot of changes to make it work, but I'm getting the hang of the software.
Now I need to put the interactive components in, and I can't figure out how to do it, what language to use, what command to look for. I want to put small boxes next to a list of choosable items that a recipient could click on to place a check mark inside the box, to indicate that they've chosen this item. Do you understand what I'm trying to do? How do I find this functionality within LibreOffice?
Thank you so much!
Gerianne
Chapter 15 in the LibreOffice Writer v4.2 documentation is about forms creation. You will need to visit the View > Toolbars menu and add the following:
Form Controls has the checkbox and other items that you can place inline with your text. When you click on the checkbox, you will need to click and drag to your right to allow for the checkbox Label. Double-clicking on the selected checkbox will bring up the checkbox properties panel, where you can set the text for the checkbox, and other qualities. The following example shows a frame containing two checkboxes with text flowing around the frame.
Does that still work in a pdf?
Because otherwise the recipient will require LibreOffice or Word to open and fill out the form.
Peter
OK, Viking, I'm with you so far! I've gotten the check boxes in place, and they appear to work when I send a .pdf to myself. I do need to check that further, but so far, so good! Now, I realize that there are places in the questionnaire that call for the completer to type a response. I can't seem to figure that piece out! Can LibreOffice do that? How? I've looked and tried things, but can't figure it out.
Thanks for your help thus far!
Hi Peter,
I have PDF checkbox de/select functionality on Mavericks 10.9.5 and Yosemite 10.10.4 using Preview, Acrobat Reader 11.0.11, and Acrobat Reader DC. The checkmark that appears in the source LibreOffice v4.4.3 document becomes an x in the preceding PDF viewers. The ability to de/select checkboxes extends to viewing the PDF in Acrobat Reader 11.0.11 on Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit.
When saved from LibreOffice as a Word 2013 .docx, the empty frame and text wrap survives in Word 2016 Preview 15.11.1, but the form check boxes disappear.
On page 436, read from Accessing data sources to the end of the chapter. I haven't personally done it, but one can create a PDF that captures user input to a local, or remote database server. One would have to start with File > New > XML Form Document, and Export as PDF… selecting Create PDF Form, and the appropriate type. There might be additional help in the LibreOffice Base (database) guide on their site.
Of course, this begs the question, why not create a comparable web page that does the same thing via web forms and send the captured input to that same database server. More available skills to do the web page than engineer the functionality into a LibreOffice XML Form Document.
Making a Survey with Pages 5.5.3
