Forms in all their infinite variety?

[Geoff hart <ghart -at- attcanada -dot- ca>]

Nea Dodson is <<...starting a massive redesign of my section's Intranet site, 
which includes a large number of forms. The Powers That Be want these online 
forms to be in a format that allows the user to: - Fill them out online without 
special plug ins - Send them via email *as a form* (not just the data)- Print 
them out for records/faxing, etc.>>

Except for the part about "send them as a form", it sounds like the FormMail 
software should do what you're looking for. This is a public domain (or perhaps 
shareware) script that runs on a UNIX server and transmits data entered into an 
HTML form as an e-mail message; the default redirect page after you click the 
submit button is a printable screen that contains the data you entered, but 
it's also possible to trap the data and display it in your own custom redirect 
page, which would also be printable.

Before we can really resolve the "send them as a form, not just data" part, you 
need to define what the PTB mean when they say "form": if they're talking about 
specific software, that defines the solution for you, but if not, you need to 
get a clear definition before proceeding. Presumably, they mean something that 
resembles the original input screen but that isn't editable. It should be 
possible to take the output from FormMail and run it through Acrobat to produce 
something more nearly like a "form"; for example, the Web-based process for 
submitting papers to the upcoming STC conference proceedings lets you upload a 
formatted file, and some special software on the Web site transforms it into 
PDF automatically and displays it online in Acrobat so you can proof the 
results and decide whether it's necessary to resubmit.

<<Acrobat files can't be edited online and emailed back.>>

Yes, they can, but the readers would require the full Acrobat package (perhaps 
the "Business Tools" version would suffice), and that violates your "no 
plug-ins" requirement. The text annotation and "pen" tools should get the job 
done well if having to own Acrobat isn't a problem.

--Geoff Hart  ghart -at- netcom -dot- ca
Pointe-Claire, Quebec, Canada
"Most business books are written by consultants and professors who haven't 
spent much time in a cubicle. That's like writing a firsthand account of the 
Donner party based on the fact that you've eaten beef jerky."--Scott Adams, The 
Dilbert Principle



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