Comments on: Let’s Put an End to Stupid Forms

By: CogDogBlog » Suffer Me No Inefficiency

CogDogBlog » Suffer Me No Inefficiency — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 07:07:47 +0000

[...] I’ve complained before about the continual irony of someone emailing you a form to fill as a PDF file, requesting me to complete them, and FAX them back. This requires me to waste my time, printing a digital document to paper (waste of resources), hand write in my information (most likely marginally legible), return it via the emerging technology of 1981 (Fax machine), where some poor sucker on the other end has to decipher a now badly printed document (analog), and manually retype that information into a computer screen (return to digital). [...]

By: Susan WB

Susan WB — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 16:53:36 +0000

Honestly, I don’t get why people don’t know how to make forms in Word, either. It’s not hard! And it’s dead useful – we use them all the time in my workplace for accounting and HR forms and the like. No tree killing required. Download form. Complete form fields. Save as. Send as attachment to…

And if you need to tally responses, web form services like http://www.formsite.com can handle that too – and give you data in graphical format, compiled however you like.

Are we in the 21st Century or what?

By: Jotex

Jotex — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 20:19:34 +0000

Couldn’t agree with you more. We CAN save trees if we would only try. Not to mention time, as you say, re-formatting someone else’s .pdf text…. [have used deskUNPDF, but it sometimes loses formatting, and I still lose time (grrrrrrrrr). Web-based sounds like the best solution to me!

By: Brick & Mortar Blended » Best Technology Rant of the Week

Brick & Mortar Blended » Best Technology Rant of the Week — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 14:38:54 +0000

[...] Cog Dog Blog’s very appropriate question: Why the heck are we using terrible paper forms? [...]

By: Ryan Collins

Ryan Collins — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 20:00:03 +0000

OpenOffice.org will create editable PDF forms that are saveable, no Acrobat Pro required!

And when forms ask for information I’ve already written, I just write in, “see previous page”. :-)