To the original poster and others, if you want to make executable pdf files, and that is what we are talking about, Adobe Professional is the way to go. I would recommend an older version as the latest version doesn’t include livecycle, which is a key component.
You can usually download the product and for 30 days, use it for free.
Here is a brief tutorial.
The first thing you need is a clean pdf. By that I mean, a clean form done in Word, Publisher or some other program. Most of the standard forms, like the 1802 for instance, have to have things removed in order to allow things to be added with Adobe Professional.
After you get a clean file in Word or whatever program, then make a pdf of it.
Next, open Adobe Professional and select forms. In that list, select add fields and Adobe will do most of it for you. Make everything a text field. This includes pictures. Just make a big text box.
After you are done creating the form in Adobe, go into LiveCycle and fine tune the positions of the boxes and also, change the type of box. For pictures, change the text box to an image field and select “fit image to rectangle”. For date fields, change them to date fields from text fields.
You can do anything in Adobe including formulas. On my wind mit form, if there is a question as to the percent of non-hip features on a hip roof, I enter the numbers and it automatically calculates the percent and displays it.
Adobe Professional also comes with a print driver, which is key. This allows you to “print” the document to a pdf, which doesn’t need any security settings as it is just like a printed piece of paper.
I have used every pdf program there is and I can tell you, this works the best.
PDF fill, CutePdf and all the others, were all installed and removed very quickly.