Developing Form Distribution for Clients

Question

As a web developer, I've had good success developing an online form and distributing it via my own website.
However, I can't seem to figure out how to do this for my clients. The perfect scenario would be this:
I create an editable form named: AGREEMENT, and set up the distribution to manually send out the form and manually collect the responses. In the form, I create a submit button and put in my client's email address. (I enabled the Adobe extended features.) I would then send the AGREEMENT_distributed.pdf and the AGREEMENT_responses.pdf files to my client, which he would then save on his local hard drive. Then, whenever the client needed, could then send out the AGREEMENT_distributed.pdf in an email. His prospect would fill out the form, click the submit button, and the completed pdf would be emailed to my client. My client doesn't really care about the benefits of the AGREEMENT_responses.pdf file. He just wants an easy way to send out a blank pdf and received back a completed one.
The problems lies in the fact that the distributed.pdf file doesn't seem to work once it leaves my computer. I can't turn it over to him so that he can distribute. The error messages vary, from "file not encoded properly" to "inconsistent with this version of Acrobat".
How do I develop this for the client and turn it over to them?
Many thanks,

Answer 1

You do not need different versions. However, you need to be sure that you create the form with backward compatibility to the earliest level you expect to be used. Also, there are differences between Acrobat created forms and Designer forms (obtained from the forms menu in Acrobat). If you use Designer, then you have eliminated editing in Acrobat.
If you expect more than 500 uses of the form by your website by users of Reader, then you need to negotiate with Adobe for the Reader rights. The EULA limits you to 500 saves of the form. It is normal for folks to submit form data by a web script. Since you are just developing the forms for clients, it may be their problem. If you will maintain the forms, you may need to address the license issue. The web submission (most reliable) by FDF or XML is the best way to go and does not require additional license approval beyond 500 (that is just for saving the form as required for submitting the full PDF).
If you receive either data formats, they can be opened in the form in Acrobat so you still have the complete form, but maybe with an extra step. However, you might find the data is easier to deal with for use in a database.
Back to the original: With each version of Acrobat, new form features have been added. You just need to avoid the feature that are AA9 specific. Also, you may want to use the reduce file size or PDF Optimizer (for Acrobat forms - not sure for Designer forms) to save for backward compatibility.