Sign Michigan Work Order Computer

Document type sign work order michigan computer

in this video I'll present the big picture view of electronic documents and forms my goal here is to give you an understanding of what electronic or paper 'less forms are really about without getting too much into the details but to do this I'm going to start at the very beginning is really just a way to transfer information and in the past that information was inscribed on paper because that was what was available and today most of us are still using a lot of paper for the same purpose because that's just the way it's always been done but now we live in the age of digital computers and networks that provide us with a powerful alternative we can turn that paper into electronic documents and when applied correctly electronic documents have huge advantages over paper the tools used to create and manipulate electronic documents are much more powerful than the traditional set of tools used for paper as an example a word processor is much more efficient than a typewriter or a pencil and by the same token electronic document workflows that is the way that we process the information can be much more efficient than a paper equivalents the same tools are also capable of massively reducing human error just think about how spell checkers have changed how we write and of course the electronic documents themselves are much easier to store they're much easier to search and they're much easier and cheaper to transfer than paper documents so there are potentially huge advantages to using electronic documents over paper of course we already live in a world of computers and most of us already use and are familiar with many different types of electronic documents many of the document types that we're familiar with though are application specific meaning that they are proprietary and only used and viewed in a specific application application specific formats are difficult to distribute widely because the recipient may or may not have the required application formats like Word and Excel are very common and people like to treat them as if they were general-purpose distributable formats but they are not they are proprietary formats that are only used by the specific tools that created them I have a story that will illustrate the type of issue that you can experience when you use a proprietary format as a general distributed format the other day I received a statement of work document from a client who had created it in the latest version of word I have word of course but I didn't have the latest version so when I tried to view the document it was missing some information and it didn't display correctly the only way for me to use that document was to purchase an this is exactly the type of issue that makes using a proprietary format to transfer data a bad idea notice that all of the application specific formats listed here are for content entry tools Word Excel Photoshop and InDesign are all tools that are used to create documents the file format for each of these tools is very tightly tied to that tool this works well for a design tool but it is exactly the wrong kind of format that you want for distributing documents on the other hand file formats like PDF and HTML are not specific to any tool both of them are open standards that are used to view documents not to create them they are both display formats and the viewers for HTML and PDF are free anyone with a computer and use these file types it's no wonder that these are the two most popular formats for distributing documents but being free isn't everything these formats are world-class document formats because they handle a wide variety of content they can be just about any kind of document you need them to be this means that they have good navigation features that it is easy for a user to find their way around a well-set-up document they are extendable meaning that you can add features to a document that aren't part of the original format specification and our main interest in this video series that the format's have flexible interactive features they include form fields for collecting data from the user and scripts for intelligently responding to user actions without this last part PDF and HTML wouldn't be much better than paper interactive features and especially the ability to script unique functionality into the document are what make both of these formats more useful for displaying content across a broad range of applications than any other format that has come along so if we need to make a form then PDF and HTML are our best choices for the broadest range of distribution the best usability and the highest level of compatibility between versions so far this discussion has been about general-purpose electronic documents but we're here to talk about forms so what exactly is a form if documents are about transferring information then a form is about collecting and transferring data to do this the forms format are the form technology must provide a variety of data entry options so that we can configure the form in the best way possible for that forms purpose at a minimum the form needs the ability to enter text to select options from a list of choices and check items on and off another important feature is the ability to interact with the user and the data we need the forum to be able to validate data entry to perform calculations to pre-fill data fields to display messages to the user to guide them through the process and to do any number of other operations that will make it as easy as possible to collect the data all of these things that we've just been discussing are features on the form itself but a form doesn't live in a vacuum forms are always used within some kind of data workflow process a form is more than just the document itself the form technology must also include a way to implement some critical data workflow features formdata workflows differ in the implementation details but they always have these components to begin someone creates the form the form is then distributed to a group of users the person who distributes the form is the initiator and the person who fills out the form is the responder the responders return the data to the initiator data from the responders is then compiled into a data set that is then put to some other use after all the form workflow is about collecting the data not about using the data that's a completely different issue both PDF and HTML provide options for all of these features in fact they provide very similar form field and scripting capabilities they are both excellent formats for collecting data from users but they differ greatly in the workflow features we'll explore these differences in the next video PDF vs. HTML you