[BAY-BOY]

help? i have a form to scan to microsoft word so i can work on it. how do i
do it?

[JoAnn Paules]

If this is a one time deal, it's not worth all of the work you're going to
have to take to convert that paper document to a form.

--

JoAnn Paules
MVP Microsoft [Publisher]
Tech Editor for "Microsoft Publisher 2007 For Dummies"



"BAY-BOY" wrote in message
...
help? i have a form to scan to microsoft word so i can work on it. how do
i
do it?

[Botanychild]

I need to do it too. but it won't be a one time thing. Could you explain how
to do it?

[Graham Mayor]

If you can get hold of a copy Abbyy's form filler, that came with the
corporate version of Finereader 6 (and maybe other versions), is easily the
best tool I have found for filling in pre-printed forms. It takes but a few
minutes to set up, but has nothing to do with Word.

With Word, you have two options, neither of which is particularly
satisfactory. The simplest is to scan the form and insert it as a background
image at full size, then build the fillable document over it using a table
or tables with fixed cell sizes at the fillable field locations. You can
then remove the image for printing (or unset the option in Tools Options
Print) on the original forms.

If your other post is anything to go by, this is a pdf document you are
dealing with. In that case you can probably insert the (one page) PDF as an
object and set it behind text.

The second even more complicated option is to recreate the form from scratch
using OCR software to grab the layout. I would not even attempt this without
OCR software of the quality of Abbyy Finereader 9 - and even then it's an
absolute pain and should only be used where a copy of the original form is
acceptable for submission.


--

Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com
Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org



Botanychild wrote:
I need to do it too. but it won't be a one time thing. Could you
explain how to do it?