A way to transform a template chart/map into an editable template?

Question

Hello!
I've been curious about this for a while now, so I was hoping that perhaps some of you knowledgeable people in here could shed some light on this for me.
I often use Adobe Illustrator to create charts, maps and diagrams that contains texts for my employer. Basically, he tutors in business development on the highest level, and I provide him with graphics, powerpoint presentations, animations, and a lot of other stuff for his seminars.
Now, sometimes we use our charts and maps without content (ie. no text, arrows, etc.) so that he can let the companies fill out the values themselves during their exercises in the training course.
However, my (or should I say, OUR) problem has always been to figure out a way for me to 1) create a template in Illustrator, and 2) convert the template into an editable chart, or map, to fill out with text, arrows, etc.
I've just finished a small test, though, and it looks fairly alright.
What I did was to create the template map in Illustrator, save it as a PDF file, and then open the PDF file in Adobe Acrobat Pro and insert Form Fields in the empty boxes (the boxes in the map has to be empty, as the companies has to fill out these boxes with values that correspond to their own agenda (read: business)).
After filling out the boxes with Form Fields, I saved it, and re-opened it to try and enter some default texts, and it seemed to work quite well.
What I am wondering, however, is if there is a much more effective way to create a graphic template chart/map that can be edited by others easily and effectively.
Perhaps anyone in here knows of a viable solution?
Cheers,
ufoldager

Answer 1

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...they'd need Acrobat Pro in ordre to fill out the form fields and save the document on their own hard drive...
No they wouldn't.
1. Create the artwork in Illustrator or whatever.
2. Save as PDF.
3. Open in Acrobat Pro. Add the desired form fields.
4. Enable the file for Reader Extensions.
The file can now be opened in the freely-distributed Adobe Reader. The fields can be edited, and the file can be saved with the edits, printed, etc. by the end-user, using nothing but Reader.
However...
Your description of your task is too vague. Why don't you show an example of exactly what you want to do? For example, you talk about graphs being updated by the end-user's data input. That's not going to happen with a basic PDF form. You can do the steps described above, but editing the PDF fields is not going to cause the graph artwork to update according to the new values.
Basically, your too-general description suggests you want an easy and quick way to build what amounts to (practically speaking) a standalone interactive application, without entailing a lengthy learning process. Truth is, Adobe graphic apps aren't really going to provide that without a significant learning curve in Flash or scripting or some combination of programs. PDF forms features can be used for some very basic interactivity, but not like you describe, without getting into the minutia of embedding Flash SWFs in the PDF, etc.
If you understand Flash, it is an option. Flash is not just for deployment on the web. You can create standalone runtime apps with Flash. But again, learning how to build and script an interactive graph in Flash is not a trivial matter. And while Flash is certainaly geared toward real-time interactivity, it's not out-of-the-box geared toward responding to and writing to database records. (It can be made to do that, but again there's a significant learning curve.)
Illustrator's XML-based Variables feature is pretty much useless outside of the native Illustrator application. (Frankly, I find it pretty much useless even within the program.)
The fact is, although Adobe apps are just now beginning to add a few "me too" features to make them more useful for changing-data driven graphics, they are way late to the game. It's really not a clean and simple process. And in typical Adobe fashion, the intention seems to be toward convoluted dependency upon several Adobe apps and technologies; Adobe apps don't really provide the straight-out-of-the-box, rapid-development, minimal-fuss data-driven solutions that business users need.
Of course, the most obvious platform for what you have so-far described would simply be Excel. No, it doesn't export standalone runtime applications, but it's so ubiquitous among business users, it's a safe bet your end-users can work with it. Regarding data-driven maps, you might look at Microsoft MapPoint.
Depending somewhat upon the nature of the graphs, maps, etc. that you're talking about (which you do not describe to any suitable degree), I'd consider building a solution in FileMaker Pro. FMP is an easy-to-use and very versatile relational database program. It provides basic graph types (that can nonetheless be used to display not-so-basic data analysis). It can export directly to PDF. It can be bound as a standalone runtime application (graphing excluded). It can deployed via the web with its own built-in Instant Web Publishing engine. The main advantage is that it is actually a database. So entering and saving data for multiple end users or multiple what-if scenarios, integrating values from any number of related data tables, live calculations, and/or logic, is standard fare--each data change can be a separate record in the database.
For example: I have a FMP database containing some 23,000 or so records. Several of the Layouts (views) of those records have live curve graphs that illustrate things like sales trends over time. The graphs are entirely live. As you flip through the records, the graphs display the curves for the current record. If the data in the fields is changed, the graphs update in real time. That solution can be viewed and worked with in a web browser from anywhere.
But for good advice, you need to provide a good description of what exactly you need to do.
JET