How about Adobe Acrobat 9. Auto conversion to take care of blanks it recognizes in document.
I understand you are trying to make things work in Word. Too bad Word doesn't have a built in feature to do same. Word does have the "Form" feature which allows you to create fields. Guess I am looking for a built in solution. A lot to expect from Microsoft. However, I do believe in Santa Claus and the tooth fairy, so Microsoft has a chance.