Advice needed re document creation from FM

[NotVeryTechie]

Hi there

I hope someone can help with this. We have bought a database system for our company (FMPro based) and this is currently being customised for us. One of the problems we have encountered is that we need to produce a registration form (pre-set form) which contains database information (course name, date, etc) which is auto loaded into the page. This is then auto emailed to the client. My problem is that our consultant insists that FileMaker can only produce pdf format and we have some clients that want to complete the form electronically. Is there any way that FM can create such an automated form that is not a pdf? Something like a Word doc?

[comment]

Although Filemaker can produce a PDF document containing data from the database*, it can NOT produce a PDF form that the recipient can then fill out. IMHO, the more important question here is how to get the data from the filled forms back into the database. Filemaker does not read PDF form data. There are many other formats of electronic forms you could consider, but AFAIK all of them would require some kind of middleware or a plugin.

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(*) from version 8 and above

[bcooney]

You could ship them a runtime, but that's huge. Or have a web front end. Or use this .

[NotVeryTechie]

Thanks for the replies guys. I don't at this time need the form's information to go straight back into the database. The form gets completed by the client, they then fax it back or email it back and we complete the information onto the database. (I know this is old fashioned, but we are not at the auto completion stage and we check everything first anyway)

The system we have used up to now created a word doc that could be emailed to the client, completed by them and then emailed back to us. We are now in a situation where we have to tell our clients to fax everything back. What I don't understand is why FM is incapable of producing a word doc.

[bcooney]

FM actually can produce a Word doc. You can use a plug-in like ScriptMaster from 360Works to export a text field to a .doc.

Your text field can be a calc that has the FM record data in it.

(Thanks to Ruben van der Boogaard for this tip.)

[comment]

So maybe all you need to do is export from Filemaker as .mer, then use Word with a suitable template to create the individual documents.

[NotVeryTechie]

Thank you so much guys - I am going to feed this back to our supplier and see if we can solve our problem. Great help, thanks!