Acrobat 9 Form Wizard on Complex PDF Artwork

Question

I read the following an article at InDesign Secrets
http://indesignsecrets.com/automated-forms-with-acrobat-8-and-indesign.php
It explains how to use layers in InDesign to help Acrobat's form recognition recognise form fields when there is not enough definition. However I wanted to be able to apply the same sort of concept to a complex area.
created a layer with a simple form design on top of the layers with complex design. I exported the PDF, open it up in Acrobat, hide the complex layer and the run the form recognition.
I figured the form recognition would only process the information on the visible layers... but that does not seem to be the case.
What can I do for these complex forms?

Answer 1

The first thing you need to come to grips with is that anything that's
automated is going to be less than perfect.
With that out of the way, create the document without the complex data
and export the PDF. Run the form field recognition.
Then export the document with the complex data to PDF. With the orignal
PDF open use the Document>Replace Pages command in Acrobat to replace
the simple page with the complex page. The form fields will remain and
you'll have the final artwork.
Bob