ASSISTIVE TECHNOLOGY BLOG | INVENTIONS FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES

Over the last couple of months Adobe has released a number of new online products that have made my life a lot easier. I now use Adobe SendNow service when sending large PDF's and in fact just yesterday I used it to send a colleague a large PDF Portfolio. With the the integration of SendNow with Adobe Acrobat X, with a click of the mouse you can now deliver large PDF files for delivery using this easy to use service. Recently Adobe released a new service called Adobe FormsCentral which lets you easily create, distribute and analyze online forms and surveys. Adobe FormsCentral has an easy to use but powerful online Form Builder that should have you getting your online forms up within minutes of logging into the service.

I had a chance to test drive Adobe FormsCentral this weekend to see how easy it was to create an online registration form for my upcoming  iPad Summer Institute. Adobe FormsCentral comes with built in Templates to get you quickly started . I first selected the Event Registration Form from the Template Gallery and within seconds I was able to fine tune the online form to meet my needs. I was able to insert new fields from the Insert menu and customize the form to meet my unique needs for my event. As the designer, you have controls to make each field required and if you like you can also add a Help icon to give users more explicit directions when completing the form. Adobe FormsCentral gives you a good range of field types to choose from and the online tools are fluid and logical when using. Not being a graphic artist, I am happy to say that Adobe provides the necessary tools so that when you are done the form looks very professionally done. Once you are done designing your form you are now ready to Distribute the form to your audience.By clicking on the Distribute tab you can now select from several different ways to distribute your form: email link, copy link, and embed link. Choose which ever way you would like to distribute your online form and now you are ready to sit back and start collecting the data. Adobe FormsCentral let you do a Test Submission which is a nice feature to check to see that your form works the way you want it to.

Once the forms are completed Adobe FormsCentral gives you a host of online tools to review the responses. In a future blog post I will talk more about the Response Tools and how it worked with my online Event Registration Form. If you have a chance give Adobe FormsCentral a free trial run which is available from this link. Adobe FormsCentral is available via a Basic Plan for $14.99 a month which enables you to create, customize, send, and analyze up to 5 forms and surveys in total with 500 responses per form or survey. With the Pluse Subscription Plan you can create unlimited forms and surveys and get up to 5,000 responses per form or survey. Overall, you will find Adobe FormsCentral an easy and powerful online forms design and analysis tool.