Fillable form from paper

[mubs]

Is there any software that can scan an original paper form and create a digital fillable form - pdf or word or excel or proprietary?

I know Acrobat Professional can do this, but it's $285 street. Acrobat Std. can't do this, and the oher features I want in Acrobat Std. are available free (in multiple programs, but I don't care about that).

Thanks.

 

[ddrueding]

Omniform, but I hate it.

 

[mubs]

Thanks DD. If you hate it, guess I should stay away from it. Especially because it's 2x the price of Acrobat 8 Pro!

 

[Santilli]

Omniform, but I hate it.

I've got 5.1 Omniform, but, it's no longer made by the same company I bought it from, so, support isn't exactly wonderful.
Unlike other software, you had a limit of 100 documents you could create, then you had to buy additional 'right's to create more documents, using their software. Created about 20 IEP forms for a couple different school districts, one of which repayed me by letting me go...;-(

Not exactly intuitive software, either.

Does Adobe support scanning, and, creating forms?

Greg

 

[mubs]

With Acrobat Pro you can, among other things,

Scan documents into Adobe PDF and automatically recognize text with optical character recognition (OCR)

Create fillable PDF forms from scanned paper, existing PDF documents, Microsoft Word documents, or Excel spreadsheets

Automatically recognize form fields on static PDF documents and convert them to interactive fields that can be filled electronically by anyone using free Adobe Reader software

Create forms using more than 20 different XML-based templates (Windows only)

Get started quickly with easy-to-use wizards that guide you through forms creation, distribution, and data aggregation

Enable Adobe Reader users to fill and save PDF forms locally for offline use*
*For ad-hoc forms distribution and data collection for up to 500 people.

Export form data to a spreadsheet for further analysis, without the need to rekey

You can do the first of these (scanning & OCRring) with Acrobat Std. as well. The rest require Acrobat Pro or Acrobat 3D.

More at Adobe's website. You can download a detaild comparison pdf (under the "Want more information?" text).

# 2 & #3 are biggies for me.

 

[Howell]

Check out CutePDF.

http://www.cutepdf.com/index.htm

 

[mubs]

Thanks Howell. It's not clear that CutePDF can do #2 and #3 on the list I provided Santilli. I've sent an email to their support; I'll post back here with the reply.

 

[Santilli]

Does the software work????
Adobe is not exactly at the top of my list, after working with Adobe Acrobat Reader...

Photoshop works...

Greg

 

[mubs]

I heard from CutePDF after a couple of days, and from PDF995 almost instantaneously. Neither can do #2 and #3.

Greg, I don't have the sw yet; I'm still evaluating. Besides, I guess you didn't read my earlier response to your question. Photoshop would be a very clumsy solution to my needs.

 

[Santilli]

I heard from CutePDF after a couple of days, and from PDF995 almost instantaneously. Neither can do #2 and #3.

Greg, I don't have the sw yet; I'm still evaluating. Besides, I guess you didn't read my earlier response to your question. Photoshop would be a very clumsy solution to my needs.

I think you misunderstood my response. Paying Adobe another 400 bucks is not high on my priority list unless the software is vital, and, proven by people using it.

My point about Photoshop was simply for 400 bucks, it's a passable solution. Adobe is ok, in my book, but not exceptional, and, their name is NOT a promise of excellent software.

Greg

My last memory of using Omniform is by the time I got it down, and got the IEP forms scanned, I was just getting used to using it, and, figuring out it's quirks. I save it for very important projects that will be used quite a few times. No point scanning just one form to be used once.

 

[Howell]

I heard from CutePDF after a couple of days, and from PDF995 almost instantaneously. Neither can do #2 and #3.

A shame. Might this be something you could outsource to Kinko's or other?

 

[Howell]

When we need #3 we just do it manually. You didn't really mention your volume.

 

[mubs]

Greg, sorry, my bad. I just don't see Photoshop being a fit in this case. And I got a bit confused; I presume by Adobe you actually meant Acrobat (since Photoshop is from Adobe as well).

Howell, no Kinko's. Even FedEx hardly does any business here (India).

Volume is low, but important enough that I'll probably end up buying Acrobat Pro on my next visit to the U.S. (end of April to end of June).

Thanks everybody for your help!

 

[mubs]

Forgot to add: I can buy the stuff here, but I'll have to pay 2x :arge: