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Shirley MastrorilliFlag for United States of America

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How to Save Word 365 Document w/Check Box to PDF Fillable keeping Check Box.

I have created several forms for work, in Word 365, with check boxes.  When I save them as PDF and go into my Adobe Pro - 2017, and prepare the form to make it fillable - the default for the check box is a block User generated imageI cannot find where I can make Adobe default to a proper check box - with an actual checkmark. Right now, I prepare the form in Adobe, delete the information in the box, click on the check mark box, resize the box, copy it, and paste for the next box, changing the name of the box. One form I have has over 30 boxes, and everytime I have to update the form I have to go through the process again.  There must be a way to make this automatic, but for the life of me, I do not see how to do it.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

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John Korchok
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I think one EE member I helped this year decided to move to another product to maintain their forms and send them. but they did not share which one exactly I recommended to leverage. I do like PDF Sam products. A few workplaces I have been with used DocuSign and I have heard of PandaDoc.
For fillable forms you may want to consider PDF Sam Enhanced or these as alternatives potentially:DocuSign:PandaDoc:
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Hi Shirley, I have Adobe Acrobat Pro and took the following steps.

1) Create new word doc
2) Insert Checkbox control
3) Save as test.docx
4) Close Word
5) Open file as pdf using Adobe Acrobat Pro
6) Use the current doc as form and select the checkbox from word as a control

I was able to reproduce what you are seeing.

If on step 3 above, I saved as pdf instead of docx, I did not get the same issue. However, that checkbox generated from Word does not come through as an available field to change to an Adobe Form field. Instead, I had to just remove it and create my own Adobe form field.

I know that it works differently with a text field, but I couldn't figure it out as a checkbox.

checkbox3.pdf

On the example Checkbox3.pdf, the two box's on the left are from Word using both states of checked and unchecked. The one n the right is an actual Adobe form field.   That file was created by saving the word file as a pdf from within word. 
Let me try that again, it didn't save.

checkbox3.pdf
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John Korchok, thank you for confirming that there is no default way to go from Word to PDF without having to replace the check box.  Too bad no one in Adobe has thought about this.  Thank you for your instructions to keep the checkbox at the correct size.  This will hopefully save a little time, and I won's have to keep changing the block number.
Jazz, thank you for the suggestions; however we have spent a lot of money on the Adobe product, and if I can figure out an easier way to produce my forms with Adobe, I would like to stay with Adobe.
John, I followed your instructions, and even though I have to create a checkbox for each option, setting a checkbox to new defaults will definitely save me a lot of time.  Thank you so much for this suggestion!
Hi Shirley,

No problem! Totally understand. I wonder if it is a matter of versions where you may see a difference,  Adobe Pro - 2017, perhaps do a trial of another version or the latest and compare also against Adobe Acrobat Pro DC in regards to form creation.
That is an idea.  I will do a comparison.  Thank you for the idea.