How to set a PDF form to SAVE the Information that Someone Enters

The tricky tricky thing that gives people the most trouble by far with Acrobat has to do with creating a form that is not only fill-able, but that can be saved and will retain the entered data, even for people who only have Acrobat Reader. This is a very easy thing to do, but it is not well published. In order for the option below to work, you should start from the original file that the pdf was created from (Word, etc.) Doing this to an already created pdf file requires an extra step. If you are starting from a pdf file, follow the instructions below except you must save it once as a new file before doing the steps below. It sound silly, but if you don’t, the menu option outlined below will be greyed out.

Once you have converted your form from Word, and are ready to save it, select “Save As”, then “Reader Extended PDF”, then “Enable Additional Features” (Figure 1).

Figure 1

Acrobat will display a popup (Figure 2), just select “Save Now” and save your document. That’s it!

Figure 2