Please help with submitting a pdf form

Question

I've spend the last few days (literally) searching and searching - in this forum and across the web - for a SIMPLE solution to this problem and found nothing. Actually, I have found a few posts apparently trying to do the same thing I am, but with never a solution beyond "hire a programmer." Maybe  I'm missing something obvious out there, and if so please feel free to  throw tomatoes at me (along with a link I can get what I need - lol)
At this point I'm completely stumped - furthermore, I'm not a code guru in the slightest. In my research, I did find and buy a script that was supposed to do what I needed - but it doesn't so I'm still stuck and $50 in the hole.
Moving on, I realize this may be a rather low-tech request given the power of Adobe forms, but I have a client who wants it this way so that's the way it has to be. So, here we go...
My client wants his website viewers to complete an employment application pdf form and click <submit>
I have the form completely finished and ready to go
He then wants to receive that same completed form as a PDF document as an email attachment
He cares nothing about processing the form DATA (fields) becuase he simply wants to print the form and save it to his computer for future reference
However...
Most of the people viewing and completing this app are NOT computer savvy
In fact, many viewers use public computers (such as at a library) and have no email capabilities or the ability to save the form
So I cannot use the basic submit-by-email function (that requires a desktop email client)
So far what I've been trying to do (with the purchased script referred to above) is direct my <submit> button to the url of the php script on the client's server. If I select "html" in the (pdf) submit dialogue box, I do in fact get the DATA from the form in an email. But that's not what I need. If I select "entire pdf document" in the submit dialogue box, I get an error w/ the script.
In my research I've read that the form DATA can be sent to the server, then parsed back into a PDF form. This seems logical but unnecessary. Also this is an 8 page form with LOTS of data fields, some are required others are optional.
Is there ANY WAY to have the same form a viewer is filling out and submitting simply sent as an email attachment from the server the form is hosted on???

Answer 1

Yes, that's possible, and I have just the script...
Sorry, I couldn't resist.
I would suggest that the best approach is to set up the form to submit just the form data as an FDF file. This avoids the limitations associated with Reader-enabling the form, which is necessary for the entire filled-in form to be submitted. You mentioned that just sending the form data is logical but unnecesary, but this will be by far the most reliable method.
Now, you just need a server-side program (script) that processes the form submission. Here's what the script would do:
1. Accept the incoming data and check that it is a valid FDF.
2. Attach the FDF to an email message that gets sent to your client
The recipient of the email can launch the FDF attachment and the corresponding PDF will load and get populated with the data in the FDF. The filled-in PDF can then be viewed/printed/saved.