Expert Assistance Needed for Improving Form Recognition in PDF-XChange

[dinym]

Our large multinational company recently transitioned from Adobe Acrobat to PDF-XChange for our document management needs. I am part of a team that manages over 450 Word-based competency assessment forms, which we convert to PDFs and store in our document management system.

We want our end users and assessors to be able to download these PDFs and use the "Identify Forms" feature in PDF-XChange to easily convert them into fillable online forms. Currently, this feature has an accuracy rate of about 80%, with many fillable fields not being correctly identified.

We seek guidance on how to design our original Word documents to ensure that, when converted to PDF and opened with PDF-XChange, the "Identify Forms" feature works with 100% accuracy. Specifically, we would like to know:

Are there specific design elements or markers we can embed in our Word documents to indicate fillable fields?
Would using certain symbols or characters (e.g., "...." or a specific indicator) help improve accuracy? If so, we could format these in white to remain invisible in printed versions.
How does PDF-XChange’s "Identify Forms" feature detect potential fillable fields, and what best practices should we follow?

We believe that optimizing our Word document design could greatly enhance the functionality and user experience of our forms.

We would greatly appreciate the opportunity to discuss this with an expert who can provide us with detailed recommendations.

Thank you for your assistance.

[Paul - PDF-XChange]

Hi, dinym

thanks for the [osdt and excellent question.

I see no license associated with your email domain, so I am not sure what the company holds, you will need a seat for every user who does this. Licensing aside, there are two things I would suggest:

1. I Can and will indeed speak to the devs about how to craft a Word Document suitable for conversion as you ask.
2. Can you furnish us with examples that are subpar for us to investigate? Perhaps we can meet you half way.

Improving the source docs is always a good idea and I will have that discussion. Would you be amenable to collecting a few samples of the most glaring problems with the current conversion? We can do it privately, not on the forums and treat your forms as confidential if needed.

If you are up for that email [email protected] attention Paul to reach me privately and we can arrange getting some sample.