Renovating Your Forms: Step 8

Produce Your Form

Once your form is designed according to the Better Forms Standards, you are ready to produce your form.

Printing

If it is a high-volume form that will be distributed in hard copy, contact Communications Nova Scotia to discuss your printing options. Your department’s communications officer can help you coordinate with Communications Nova Scotia.

If it is a lower-volume form, and most clients will be accessing it online, you may need to print only a few copies at a time, using a desktop printer.

Producing A PDF

To make your form as user-friendly as possible, produce a PDF that can be completed electronically rather than printed and filled in by hand. This both makes it easier for the form filler to complete the form in the space provided and ensures that responses are legible, thus reducing data-entry mistakes.

For forms to be filled in electronically, you need to create fields in the form. This can be done in any version of Adobe Acrobat (not the free Acrobat Reader).

For clients to be able to save their work-in-progress on a form, and the completed form, you need to use Adobe Acrobat, version 8.0 or higher. If you do not have this version, you may purchase the software through your department’s IT specialists.

The online tutorial in Adobe Acrobat explains in detail how to create fields and which settings you need to activate so clients can save the document. Or you can contact Communications Nova Scotia, who can coordinate the creation of fields in your form. This is relatively inexpensive compared to purchasing and learning how to use new software.

Making Your Form Available Online

When uploading your PDF to the government website, make sure that the title of the form is the same in the web site as it is on the form itself. Make sure all online references to the form use the same title. Upload the latest version of the form to one location only, to make it easier to ensure the latest version is always online. People may be able to access the form through various different pathways, but it should be stored only in one central location.

Make the route to your form as straightforward as possible. Talk to the web development staff in your department about creating meta information for your form so that it is searchable by title and function on the government website.

If your form is related to a permit, licence, approval, registration, or certificate, be sure to provide your form to the Service Nova Scotia and Municipal Relations’ eServices division. They can make your form available to the public through the Nova Scotia Permits Directory.