Hi Nat,
Great question! Yes, you can definitely convert your Excel spreadsheet into a fillable PDF form while still preserving the formulas in the cells. Here's how:
- Open your Excel spreadsheet and make sure all the cells you want to be fillable are unlocked. To do this, select all cells by clicking the box in the top left corner of the spreadsheet, right-click and select "Format Cells". Under the "Protection" tab, make sure the "Locked" checkbox is unchecked.
- Save your Excel spreadsheet as a PDF. In Excel, go to "File" "Save As" and select "PDF" from the file type dropdown menu.
- Open Adobe Acrobat Pro and go to "File" "Create" "PDF Form". Select "From Existing Document" and choose the PDF file you just created from your Excel spreadsheet.
- Acrobat will automatically detect any form fields in the PDF and convert them to fillable fields. You can also manually add or edit form fields as needed.
- To preserve the formulas in the cells, make sure to select "Include all form fields" under the "Form Field Recognition Options" section.
- Save your new fillable PDF form and test it out to make sure everything is working as expected.
That's it! The ability to enter data into certain cells in the new PDF will be enabled by the fillable form fields you created in Acrobat. There's no need to enable anything in the original XLS file.