Fast Forms is an application for designing forms. Design is done with tools (much like a simple drawing program) to draw lines, rectangles, and text. Data entry areas are drawn with a “field” tool. A field can have several functions including direct and calculated entries. After a form has been designed, it can be printed and filled out by hand or directly on the computer within the Fast Forms program.
Included with Fast Forms is a separate program called Fast Forms Filler. It provides a means to open and fill out forms created by Fast Forms but does not allow design changes.
Using Fast Forms
A new document starts with a blank page with a cross hatched line indicating the print area. The print area is fixed for the printer driver selected in “Chooser” and cannot be adjusted. I won’t go into how the drawing tools or other drawing effects are used—you draw, re-size and move them like MacDraw or MacDraft. It has two draw layers: printing and non-printing. The non-printing layer is useful for creating grids as layout guides.
Drawing a “field” (the field tool is third from the top) brings up the dialog box as shown below right. Each field is defined to have a data entry of text, numbers, check, or “X” or act as a counter that assigns a serial number as new forms of the same design are filled out. Defining a field as calculated activates a listing of other number or text fields in the dialog box. Calculations are entered by clicking on the fields and functions as shown below. Text can only equal the text of another field. Direct number entries fields can be defined to check the maximum and minimum values. Fields can be named so their purpose can be identified during design. A number is assigned automatically, or it can be changed manually.
Fast Forms has two features I have not seen in drawing programs; “duplicate” and “distribute.” You select an object or several objects and choose “duplicate” in the menu which brings up a dialog box to define the horizontal, vertical offset, and the number of duplications desired.
“Distribute” performs a similar operation, you select the objects to be distributed, then select “distribute” in the menu. In a dialog box you are asked to distribute by center, right top, etc. Clicking OK turns the cursor to a cross. Draw a line and the objects are distributed evenly along the line.
I found these features very helpful because most forms have many equally spaced lines and boxes.
Filing out forms
To use the forms you select “Enter Form” in the menu and type in the information. I found it very efficient to tab from one field to the next. The mouse can also be used to select fields. Calculated and counter fields are skipped. Calculated fields are filled in by selecting the “Calculate” menu item; it is not automatic. “New” in the menu adds a blank form (in the same document file) of the same design. “Fast Forms Filler” works the same except you can’t make any design changes.
Documents are saved as Fast Form files. Opening the document from the Finder will not open with Fast Forms Filler. You must first run Fast Forms Filler and then select it in the menu Open dialog box.
Entries entered into forms can be exported or imported. The exported file is a tab or comma delimited text file which can be imported into a database, spreadsheet, or word processor. Imported text files must be in one of these formats. You can import information from another Fast Forms document directly to merge information from similar form designs.
Fast Forms also has a “Find” command that is a little different. Select the menu command “Find,” choose a field, type what you want to find, and press enter key. It will go to the forms with the selected field that matches. Also you can find forms by the date they were filled out.
Evaluation
To evaluate this product I decided I would reproduce the 1990 Georgia State Income Tax Form 500 page 1. It started out to be a tedious job but after becoming familiar with the program and reading the manual, it became easier with a second start. The Georgia form is very compact with small compressed type, many lines of text, calculations, and entries. With my limited selection of small fonts it was a challenge to fit it all onto one page.
Designing in Fast Form is not difficult and adheres to the Mac interface. Filling out the form is very simple. The manual is fairly well written with adequate illustrations. Neither the manual nor the quick reference card supplied listed the key equivalents for menu functions.
There are some improvements I would like to see:
• Ability to rotate text. Many forms have vertical text like the Georgia form has. I had to copy and paste from a draw program.
• When you select a long line of existing text at the right end, sometimes the screen will jump back to the left end, and the text cursor is off the screen at the right end.
• Need a “Group” objects command similar to draw programs.
• Since many forms use compressed type, that style selection is need.
• A “Set Preferences” menu item so you can open it without having to each time you run “Fast Forms” i.e., “Snap to Grid”
• The ruler is always in fractions of an inch, the “distribute” command is in decimals. Why not make them selectable or at least the same.
• In laying out a form, it’s easier to calculate the size of several objects to fit a particular space rather than re-sizing by dragging each one. “Duplicate” or “Distribute” doesn’t help. The ability to “set size” in a dialog box is also needed.
• Page Margin control.
I believe that general Mac users in most businesses would find this or a similar program useful. It’s a simple way to design forms and keep a database of the filled out forms. I have not used any other form design programs and therefore cannot comment on how they compare.
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