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Protection within Forms and Templates

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by johanna_brands

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Hi, I am looking for suggestions for a solution/s to lock down certain parts of templates and forms.

I have had a look at Adobe Acrobat Professional however, I need the option of expandable text areas and the ability to insert a graphic and I couldn't see the possibility of doing this with Adobe Acrobat.

I also attempted this using Microsoft Word and the document protection option - this worked fairly well (except for the insert graphic) however once it was published to our intranet all the users need to do is turn it off and then they are able to change anything they like.

I believe I can get something like this professionally created (outside) but then I am left with going back to them everytime there is a change (with associated charges of course) and I would really like to be able to manage it in-house if possible as our area produces a lot of forms.

Thanks for any assistance you may have!

Kind regards
Jo

2 replies

by nepenthe0

Changes to Acrobat involve a masking [i]layer[/i]. Such changes are termed [i]markups[/i] or [i]comments[/i], and will not print unless one affirmatively selects the option to print [i]markups[/i] or [i]comments[/i].

If the print option only specifies [i]document[/i], the changes will not appear, and the mask will fail.

Therefore, I recommend that any changes to the template be made in the template medium. If you must revise a Word template, by all means, do so, then re-create the .pdf with Acrobat.

It takes considerable experience to plan ahead to the final appearance, and one almost never gets it right the first attempt. But once it's done properly, you can assign the appropriate permissions in the Security tab.

You can lock down all but the interactive text entry, if you prefer. No additional software is needed.

So I suggest that you use Acrobat for its intended purpose - faithful rendering of the originator's intentions, and the ability to create interactive sections within a form. It remains a truism that the right way is often not the easy way.

Rick/Portland, OR

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