Beginning with version 7.05 of its popular Acrobat Professional software, Adobe introduced a feature called "Typewriter" that reduces the creation of an interactive PDF form to just a few clicks. When owners of Adobe Acrobat Pro version 7.05, or newer, "Typewriter-enable" a PDF document, anyone using version 7 of the free Adobe Acrobat Reader can click anywhere on the page and begin typing. Owners of version 7 of Acrobat Professional can get "Typewriter" as part of the free 7.05 upgrade. It is also included in the newer versions 8 and 9 of Acrobat Professional.

Just about everyone has had the experience of finding the exact government or court form they need online as a PDF, but once it was downloaded, they discovered that it was not "interactive." They could not fill the form in electronically. They still had to print it out, and then look for a real typewriter or worse yet, fill the form in by hand. The "Typewriter" function can be used to make these forms interactive.

The "Typewriter" function is essentially a more user-friendly version of Acrobat Professional's existing "Text Box" tool, because it allows users to insert text anywhere on the PDF. So now, owners of Acrobat Professional can easily make forms they've created, or those they've downloaded from the Internet, interactive - so that they can be filled in on the computer screen by going to Tools > Typewriter > Typewriter on Acrobat's tool bar.

Just be careful though...if you enable "Typewriter" in an already-interactive PDF form, the two options sort of cancel each other out and neither one works - leaving the form "un-fillable." You can discover more secrets to using Acrobat effectively in the ABA-published The Lawyer's Guide to Adobe Acrobat.

Click here for a 30-day free trial of Adobe's Acrobat Professional (version 9).

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