Creating Merge Templates with Adobe Acrobat DC (Part 1 of 2)

[Admin]

Background:

Dibcase has the ability to merge client, claims, contact, and company information into PDF merge documents. However, before that process can be completed, you must use templates that already have merge fields added or add them yourself. In this guide, we'll walk you through the basics of creating a merge template PDF document.

 

Step 1: Securing The Raw Document

Note: You can download forms here that already have merge fields added

Forms that you download from https://www.ssa.gov/forms/ have security settings that prohibit users from editing them.

To edit these "protected" documents, you must either print them out and re-scan them or "Print them as a Microsoft PDF". Printing to PDF will remove the the merge fields that may have been on the template. Once you have a your raw template with no merge fields, you can go the Step 2.

Step 2: Open PDF Document With Adobe Acrobat CC

Step 3: Use the "Prepare Form" tool to have Acrobat detect and create merge fields.

 

Step 4: Click "Start" To Prepare Form

Adobe will detect where it thinks merge fields belong and add checkboxes and text fields. Sometimes this works well but you will have to rename the fields with the Dibcase merge fields to tell Dibcase which data corresponds with which fields.

 

Merge Field Rules:

1. You must change the title of the Adobe merge field to correspond exactly with the name of the Dibcase merge field.

The field titles can be changed by using the Properties field of the merge field

 

 

2. All checkboxes must begin with "CK_" in order for Dibcase to know it's a checkbox. (Note: These can be set as "On" or "Off" when importing templates.

3. If you have a multi-page document, fields that are identical must have a unique name. For example, "{CLIENT_SSN} 1" would be appropriate if that field appeared on page 1 of your multi-page form. If that field were to appear on page 3 again, for example - you would need to label the field "{CLIENT_SSN} 3" in order to get both instances to merge properly.

4. You can combine multiple fields in a single merge box. For example, "{CLIENT_ADDRESS} {CLIENT ADDRESS2} can be combinded in the same merge field.

5. You can create dropdown fields in your Adobe file.

Tip: Fields that will never change can be hard-coded using the "Edit" command. For example, firm EIN can be hard coded to your SSA-1695 to ensure it never changes or gets keyed-over by a user.

 

Conclusion

Creating multi-page merge documents can be technically difficult and time consuming. However, once you create and upload your template(s) they will save you time and guarantee a quality uniform look to all of your documents.

 

Part Two

 

[Admin]

We are in the process of adding two new fields to the firm settings:

REP ID and Firm EIN

Once these two fields are added, we will be able to import your forms for you and make the process easier!