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Collect & manage form's data
- Acrobat User Guide
- Introduction to Acrobat
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- Opening and viewing PDFs
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- Grids, guides, and measurements in PDFs
- Asian, Cyrillic, and right-to-left text in PDFs
- Workspace basics
- Creating PDFs
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- Edit text in PDFs
- Edit images or objects in a PDF
- Rotate, move, delete, and renumber PDF pages
- Edit scanned PDFs
- Enhance document photos captured using a mobile camera
- Optimizing PDFs
- PDF properties and metadata
- Links and attachments in PDFs
- PDF layers
- Page thumbnails and bookmarks in PDFs
- Action Wizard (Acrobat Pro)
- PDFs converted to web pages
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- Forms
- PDF forms basics
- Create a form from scratch in Acrobat
- Create and distribute PDF forms
- Fill in PDF forms
- PDF form field properties
- Fill and sign PDF forms
- Setting action buttons in PDF forms
- Publishing interactive PDF web forms
- PDF form field basics
- PDF barcode form fields
- Collect and manage PDF form data
- About forms tracker
- PDF forms help
- Send PDF forms to recipients using email or an internal server
- Combining files
- Combine or merge files into single PDF
- Rotate, move, delete, and renumber PDF pages
- Add headers, footers, and Bates numbering to PDFs
- Crop PDF pages
- Add watermarks to PDFs
- Add backgrounds to PDFs
- Working with component files in a PDF Portfolio
- Publish and share PDF Portfolios
- Overview of PDF Portfolios
- Create and customize PDF Portfolios
- Sharing, reviews, and commenting
- Share and track PDFs online
- Mark up text with edits
- Preparing for a PDF review
- Starting a PDF review
- Hosting shared reviews on SharePoint or Office 365 sites
- Participating in a PDF review
- Add comments to PDFs
- Adding a stamp to a PDF
- Approval workflows
- Managing comments | view, reply, print
- Importing and exporting comments
- Tracking and managing PDF reviews
- Saving and exporting PDFs
- Security
- Enhanced security setting for PDFs
- Securing PDFs with passwords
- Manage Digital IDs
- Securing PDFs with certificates
- Opening secured PDFs
- Removing sensitive content from PDFs
- Setting up security policies for PDFs
- Choosing a security method for PDFs
- Security warnings when a PDF opens
- Securing PDFs with Adobe Experience Manager
- Protected View feature for PDFs
- Overview of security in Acrobat and PDFs
- JavaScripts in PDFs as a security risk
- Attachments as security risks
- Allow or block links in PDFs
- Electronic signatures
- Printing
- Accessibility, tags, and reflow
- Searching and indexing
- Multimedia and 3D models
- Add audio, video, and interactive objects to PDFs
- Adding 3D models to PDFs (Acrobat Pro)
- Displaying 3D models in PDFs
- Interacting with 3D models
- Measuring 3D objects in PDFs
- Setting 3D views in PDFs
- Enable 3D content in PDF
- Adding multimedia to PDFs
- Commenting on 3D designs in PDFs
- Playing video, audio, and multimedia formats in PDFs
- Add comments to videos
- Print production tools (Acrobat Pro)
- Preflight (Acrobat Pro)
- PDF/X-, PDF/A-, and PDF/E-compliant files
- Preflight profiles
- Advanced preflight inspections
- Preflight reports
- Viewing preflight results, objects, and resources
- Output intents in PDFs
- Correcting problem areas with the Preflight tool
- Automating document analysis with droplets or preflight actions
- Analyzing documents with the Preflight tool
- Additional checks in the Preflight tool
- Preflight libraries
- Preflight variables
- Color management
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This document explains how to collect and manage PDF form data. (For more information on PDF forms, click the appropriate link above.)
When you distribute a form, Acrobat automatically creates a PDF Portfolio for collecting the data submitted by users. By default, this file is saved in the same folder as the original form and is named filename_responses.
Collect user data
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After a user submits a form, open the returned form.
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In the Add Completed Form To Responses File dialog box, select one of the following:
Add To An Existing Responses File
Compiles the data in the response file that was created when you used the Distribute form wizard to send out the form. (If necessary, click Browse and locate the response file.)
Create A New Responses File
Creates a new response file, using the name and location you specify.
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The response file opens after you click OK. Each returned form added to the response file appears as a component file of a PDF Portfolio.
Add user data to an existing response file
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Open the response file in Acrobat.
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In the secondary toolbar, click Add.
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In the Add Returned Forms dialog box, click Add File, and then locate and select the returned forms, and click Open.
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Repeat the previous step to add any returned forms in other folders. When finished, click OK.
When you finish, each added PDF form appears as a component file of the PDF Portfolio.
Export user data from a response file
Use this process to save all the entries in a PDF Portfolio response file to a spreadsheet or XML file.
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In Acrobat, open the response file and select the data to export.
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In the secondary toolbar, click Export, and then choose Export Selected.
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In the Select Folder To Save File dialog box, specify a name, location, and file format (CSV or XML) for the form data, and click Save.
Manage form data files
You can move the answers on a PDF form to and from other file formats that preserve all the data in much less space than a full PDF.
Import form data
In some workflow scenarios, individuals submit filled-in forms as data-only files rather than as complete PDF files. These files are not PDFs, but use another file format, such as FDF or XML. You can view the data submitted by an individual recipient in the context of the PDF by opening the original file and importing the information in the data file.
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In Acrobat, open the PDF form into which you want to import data.
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Choose Tools > Prepare Form. In the right hand pane, choose More > Clear Form.
Note:When you import data from another file into a PDF form, the imported data replaces any information that appeared previously in the individual form fields. However, if the imported data file contains one or more blank form fields, importing will not clear the original data.
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Choose More > Import Data.
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In the Select File Containing Form Data dialog box, select a format in File Of Type corresponding to the data file you want to import. Then locate and select that file, and click Open.
Note:Some formats are available only for specific types of PDF forms, depending on the application used to create the form, such as Acrobat or Designer ES2. Data you import from a text file (.txt) must be formatted in tab-delimited rows that form columns.
Export file data
You can save the information in a completed PDF form as a data file in another file format. Later, you can reuse the data to fill in the form again or another form with the same fields and field names.
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In Acrobat, open the completed form file.
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In the right hand pane, choose More > Export Data.
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In the Export Form Data As dialog box, select the format in which you want to save the form data (FDF, XFDF, XML, or TXT). Then select a location and filename, and click Save.
Note:Some file formats are available only for specific types of PDF forms, depending on how the form was created.
Merge exported data files to a spreadsheet
If you want to compile data from forms that are not already in a data set, use the following process.
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Do one of the following:
- On the Edit menu, choose Form Options > Merge Data Files Into Spreadsheet.
- Choose Tools > Prepare Form. In the right hand pane, choose More > Merge Data Files Into Spreadsheet.
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In the Export Data From Multiple Forms dialog box, click Add Files.
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In the Select file Containing Form Data dialog box, select a file format option in File Of Type option (Acrobat Form Data Files or All Files). Then locate the form files that you want to merge into the spreadsheet, select them, and click Open.
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Repeat the previous step to add form data files that are in other locations, as needed.
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Click Export. Then select a folder and filename for the spreadsheet, and click Save.
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In the Export Progress dialog box, click either View File Now to open the spreadsheet file or Close Dialog to return to Acrobat.
When returned forms are in a response file, the most efficient way to export the information into a spreadsheet is to use the Export Data button in the left navigation panel for the PDF Portfolio response file.
About Forms Tracker
Use Tracker to manage the forms that you have distributed or received. Tracker allows you to view and edit the location of the response file, track which recipients have responded, add more recipients, email all recipients, and view the responses for a form.
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In Acrobat, choose Edit > Form Options > Track or View > Tracker.
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In the left navigation panel, expand Forms.
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Select a form and do one of the following:
To view all responses for a form, click View Responses.
To modify the location of the response file, in Responses File Location, click Edit File Location.
To view the original form, click Open Original Form.
To send the form to more recipients, click Add Recipients.
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