Fillable PDF Survey

[Ricky Racoon]

I imagine that this has been answered before in some form, but I didn't locate a post that addresses this exact issue. Please indulge a relatively new user:

For our HOA Tech Committee, we need to create an email-able .pdf survey that allows users to enter their responses to questions (mostly yes/no, or put an 'X' in the blank, with only one question allowing some limited random text entry). But we do not want the users to be able to modify the document in any other manner. What is the general procedure (specific steps appreciated) for making this kind of document? We have access to Nitro Pro 11. Thanks in advance for any suggestions . . .

[Steven Zakulec]

You'll want to use password security in the Protect tab to restrict editing of the PDF.

These two articles go over password-based security and the feature permissions you can set on a document.

http://guide.gonitro.com/articles/permission-settings/

http://guide.gonitro.com/articles/password-security/

I would test it to be sure, but for changes allowed, you likely want Form filling and signing.

This way people can only fill in the form fields, and can't make any changes to the PDF without knowing the password to unlock the PDF.

[Ricky Racoon]

Hi Steven, Sorry to have taken so long to acknowledge your assistance. Thank you very much. Between your feedback and some more digging, I figured out how to accomplish my task. But now I have come up against a roadblock for another issue, but have found no clear answers.

I now have a form with several survey questions that each give the users two check-boxes, 1 for YES and 1 for NO (and sometimes a third for N/A). What I would like to do is make these 2 (or 3) check-boxes mutually-exclusive - i.e. if NO is checked, and if the user then attempts to check off YES, it will either vacate the NO box, or have a pop-up saying only one choice is allowed. I've done some more digging and Google searching, but can't seem to find the general steps to accomplish this. Can you help me again with this issue? Thanks in advance . . .

[Steven Zakulec]

Glad I was able to help you earlier, and thanks for writing back.

From some research (make mutually exclusive checkboxes in a pdf search query), it looks like you can make this happen by ensuring all the related checkboxes have the same name, but a different export value.

You can check & set both of these values from the Properties menu.

Go to Forms, Select Fields.
Select your fields.
Change the name of the fields in the box that shows up on the far left corner (Name:).
Then click on each field in that group, go to Properties, Properties (or right-click and choose Properties).
Go to the Options tab, and change the Export Value field to a different value.
Repeat for each field in the group.

When you test, you'll now see that clicking on a checkbox in that group will check a box, but not allow you to do a second check in that group.  You can also uncheck everything in case you've made a mistake.

Good luck, and thanks for your question!

 Check Boxes will act like Radio Buttons if they have the same name but
different export values.  The export value is set on the “Options” tab of the Check
Box’s Properties Dialog.

[Ricky Racoon]

Hi Steven,

Thanks again. Your instructions gave me exactly what I was looking for. I like the looks of the mutually-exclusive check-marks much better than that of the radio buttons. Plus, it seems that if you use the radio button option, once clicked, they cannot be cleared like your check-mark option.